Ben ed tc  t 


Concept  of  the  guardian 

spirit  in  North  America 


BL 2530 


MEMOIRS  OF  THE 


American  Anthropological  Association 


VOLUME  I 

Part  1.* —^Materials  for  the  Physical  Anthropology  of  the  Eastern 

European  Jews .  By  Maurice  Fishberg.  (Pages 
1-146.)  Price  $1.20. 

Part  2. — Tribes  of  the  Columbia  Valley  and  the  Coast  of  Washington 

and  Oregon .  By  Albert  Buell  Lewis.  (Pages 
147-209.)  Price  50  cents. 

Part  3. — Historical  Jottings  on  Amber  in  Asia .  By  Berthold 

Laufer.  (Pages  211-244.)  Price  30  cents. 

Part  4. — The  Numerical  Proportions  of  the  Sexes  at  Birth.  By 

John  Benjamin  Nichols.  (Pages  245-300.)  Price 
45  cents. 

Part  5. — Ethnographic  and  Linguistic  Notes  on  the  Paez  Indians  of 

Tierra  Adentro ,  Cauca,  Colombia.  By  Henry 
Pittier  de  Fabrega.  (Pages  301-356.  Plates 
i-ix.)  Price  50  cents. 

Part  6. — The  Cheyenne  Indians.  By  James  Mooney.  Sketch  of 

the  Cheyenne  Grammar.  By  Rodolphe  Petter. 
(Pages  357-478.  Plates  x-xn.)  Index  to  Volume  I, 
Price  $1.20. 

VOLUME  II 

Part  1. — Weather  Words  of  Polynesia.  By  William  Churchill. 

(Pages  1-98.)  Price  80  cents. 

Part  '!.— The  Creek  Indians  of  Taskigi  Town.  By  Frank  G. 

Speck.  (Pages  99-164.  Plates  i-v.)  Price  55 
cents. 

Part  3. — The  Nez  Perce  Indians.  By  Herbert  J.  Spinden. 

,  (Pages  165-274.  Plates  vi-x.)  Price  95  cents. 

Part  4. — An  Hidatsa  Shrine  and  the  Beliefs  Respecting  It.  By 

George  H.  Pepper  and  Gilbert  L.  Wilson. 
(Pages  275-328.  Plates  xi-xiii.)  Price  50  cents. 

Part  5. — The  Ethno-botany  of  the  Gosiute  Indians  of  Utah.  By 

Ralph  V.  Chamberlin.  (Pages  329-405.)  Price 
60  cents. 

Part  6. — Pottery  of  the  Pajarito  Plateau  and  of  some  Adjacent 

Regions  in  New  Mexico.  By  A.  V.  Kidder. 
(Pages  407-462.  Plates  xiv-xxviii.)  Trice  85 
cents. 


I 

4 


^  0F  P,i'^ 

( n>  4' 

U  JUN17  ]944  ^ 

X^OGIG 


THE  CONCEPT  OF  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT 
IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


BY 

/ 

v/ 

RUTH  FULTON  BENEDICT 


1 


<UI?p  Cffollrgiatr  |Jrp«B 

GEORGE  BANTA  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
MENASHA,  WISCONSIN 


CONTENTS 


Page 


Introduction . .  5 

I.  Types  of  Guardian  Spirit  Experience .  9 

II.  The  Common  Element .  19 

III.  Behavior  of  the  Guardian  Spirit  Concept  in  Relation  to  Other 

Cultural  Traits .  43 

1.  Kinds  of  Spirits .  43 

2.  Puberty  Ordeal . .  49 

3.  Degree  of  Socialization .  51 

4.  Totemism .  57 

5.  Shamanism .  67 

6.  Economic  Life .  76 

7.  Miscellaneous  Culture  Traits .  79 

Conclusion .  84 

Bibliography .  86 


3 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/conceptofguardiaOObene 


THE  CONCEPT  OF  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT 
IN  NORTH  AMERICA 

By  RUTH  FULTON  BENEDICT 


Introduction 


\ 


THE  notable  contributions  that  have  been  made  in  the 
last  twenty-five  years  toward  the  understanding  of  early 
religious  thought  and  practice  have  from  a  certain  point 
of  view  set  themselves  a  common  goal.  Their  problem  has  been 
to  interpret  the  observed  phenomena  as  the  result  of  some  one 
psychic  process,  usually  designated  as  the  “origin.”  A  vast 
amount  of  material  has  been  brought  together  on  this  basis, 
and  certain  particular  generalizations  will  undoubtedly  stand 
for  the  future  as  they  do  for  the  present.  Tylor’s  animism  is 
beyond  question  a  universal  state  of  mind  among  primitive 
man;  and  Marett’s  formulation  of  mana ,  whether  or  not  it 
must  be  pre-animistic,  is  of  very  great  importance  in  under¬ 
standing  deep-seated  religious  attitudes. 

These  generalizations,  however,  are  in  a  class  quite  by  them¬ 
selves.  Animism  is  not  properly  in  itself  a  theoretical  matter 
at  all,  but  an  ethnographical,  descriptive  one;  it  is  not  neces¬ 
sary  to  claim  that  it  should  be  a  priori  discoverable.  Durk- 
heim,  on  the  contrary,  defends  a  thesis  of  another  order.  His 
“origin”  is  not  one  established  by  observed  fact,  but  by  com¬ 
plex  argumentation.  He  finds  the  source  of  all  religious 
attitudes  and  practices  in  the  underlying  reality  of  the  “social.”1 
Crawley  substitutes  “the  biological  crises  of  individual  life”;2 
McDougall,  fear;3  Lang,  experiences  of  a  psychic  type.4  Frazer 
especially  has  argued  a  number  of  origins  of  this  sort.5 


‘Durkheim:  Elementary  Forms  of  the  Religious  Life. 

2  Crawley:  Origin  and  Function  of  Religion,  pp.  243-249. 

3  McDougall:  Social  Psychology,  p.  305. 

4  Lang:  Making  of  Religion. 

5  See  especially,  The  Golden  Bough,  vol.  xi,  pp.  218,  273. 


5 


6 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


In  an  undertaking  the  object  of  which  is  to  formulate  “the” 
origin,  “the”  law  back  of  the  phenomena,  the  fact  of  the  number 
and  variety  of  these  theses  in  itself  indicates  a  considerable 
fallacy.  Religious  theory  is  in  fact  preeminently  liable  to 
contradictions.  Its  very  subject  matter  is  in  dispute.  What¬ 
ever  the  disagreements  in  the  problems  of  primitive  social 
organization,  the  recognition  of  a  clan,  or  of  form  of  descent,  is 
not  a  subjective  judgment;  apart  from  all  theoretical  attitudes 
and  conclusions,  there  is  a  certain  fixed  field  of  inquiry,  there  are 
certain  data  which  every  investigator  must  take  into  account. 
In  erecting  theories  of  religion,  however,  even  in  our  choice  of 
subject  matter,  we  are  fatally  free.  We  have  only  to  compare 
the  data  from  which  Tylor  argued  with  that  which  Lang  uses 
on  the  one  hand  or  Durkheim  on  the  other,  or  the  essential 
contradictions  as  to  scope  and  definition  upheld  in  the  half- 
dozen  discussions  of  the  demarcation  between  religion  and 
magic.  Or,  again,  “religion”  is  denied  in  toto  by  trained 
ethnographers  to  the  Australia  Blackfellows6  and  the  Indians  of 
Canada.7  It  is  only  when  we  put  aside  philosophical  discussions 
and  turn  to  the  descriptive  monographs  that  we  find  that  in 
spite  of  the  theorists  there  is  a  very  fair  degree  of  similarity  in 
the  type  of  facts  that  are  discussed  under  the  heading  of 
“religion.” 

Now  if  the  trails  that  have  been  made  through  this  confused 
tract  by  means  of  various  origin-theories  have  come  out  at  such 
far-distant  points  that  we  cannot  but  feel  a  doubt  of  trusting 
ourselves  to  any  one  of  them,  does  that  exhaust  the  possibilities 
of  exploration?  May  we  not  make  another  track  in  a  quite 
different  way — that  is,  by  fixing  our  attention  on  some  one 
well-recognized  cultural  trait,  and  subjecting  to  analysis  its 
observed  behavior  over  a  fairly  wide  area?  Such  an  analysis 
might  conceivably  point  in  the  same  direction  as  some  one  of 
the  “origin”  reconstructions,  and  so  reinforce  it  from  a  different 


6  Frazer:  Totemism  and  Exogamy,  hi,  p.  142. 

7  Hill-Tout:  British  North  America,  p.  166. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


7 


point  of  view.  It  might  have  little  bearing,  and  yet  suggest 
other  historical  possibilities.  At  any  rate,  it  is  worth  experi¬ 
menting  with.  It  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  keep  close 
to  the  actual  concrete  material,  and  yet  take  into  account  the 
historic  process.  It  is  likewise  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  be 
sure  we  are  not  falling  into  an  interpretation  from  mere  logical 
or  psychological  plausibility.  In  no  studies  of  the  purely  com¬ 
parative  type  is  it  possible  to  be  always  on  one’s  guard  against 
this  insidious  temptation;  yet  nothing  is  clearer  in  ethnology 
than  that  psychological  validity  is  an  almost  negligible  detail, 
capable  of  becoming  attached  to  anything  and  everything,  and 
that  the  crucial  point  is  always  to  determine  which  it  was  of  all 
these  indefinitely  numerous  plausible  potentialities  which  did 
actually  and  historically  secure  social  recognition  among  a  given 
people. 

Any  such  “behavioristic”  analysis  of  a  given  religious 
culture-trait  should  give  us  help  in  two  directions:  (1)  toward 
historical  reconstruction,  by  determining  its  distribution  and 
the  presence  or  absence  of  associated  ideas,  (2)  toward  a  more 
just  psychological  understanding  of  the  data.  It  is  only  by 
such  an  analysis  that  we  can  get  an  insight  into  the  role  which 
the  particular  concept  plays  in  different  tribal  settings,  and 
the  sort  of  relation  it  establishes  with  the  tribal  background. 
We  can  then  arrive  at  some  understanding  of  what  happens 
in  the  inner  life,  as  it  were,  of  beliefs  and  practices  assimilated 
into  diverse  tribal  complexes,  and  judge  to  some  extent  whether 
or  not  it  is  some  fixed  causality  which  is  at  work. 

Religion,  however  surely  its  ultimate  source  is  in  the  indi¬ 
vidual  mind,  for  purposes  of  discussion  is  yet  first  and  foremost 
and  all  the  time  a  matter  of  social  patterning.  It  is  not  some¬ 
thing — in  Marett’s  phrase — that  by  a  kind  of  parthenogenesis 
springs  full-born  from  the  religious  instinct  of  the  individual 
it  is  as  definitely  handed  down  through  the  generations  as  any 
piece  of  loom  technique,  and  is  as  subject  to  all  the  intricate 
fortunes  of  diffusion.  It  is  the  particular  value  of  anthropology 


8 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


to  have  elaborated  methods  for  dealing  with  this  kind  of 
cultural  phenomena,  and  it  should  be  as  valuable  to  apply  them 
in  the  matter  of  religious  belief  and  practice  as  in  the  study  of 
the  cut  of  tribal  garments,  and  the  insignia  of  primitive  secret 
societies. 

We  shall,  therefore,  in  this  paper,  attempt  an  analysis  of  one 
religious  concept,  that  of  the  guardian  spirit,  in  its  area  of  dis¬ 
tribution  in  North  America.  The  analysis  is  based  on  the 
published  relevant  material,  in  large  part  the  monographs  on 
the  several  tribes  of  North  America.  There  are  therefore 
unavoidable  gaps  and  disproportions  due  to  lack  of  information, 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  Southeast  area  of  the  continent.  More 
than  this,  however,  even  in  the  accounts  of  competent  observers, 
in  areas  that  have  been  repeatedly  studied,  the  comparability 
of  material  from  the  various  tribes  and  especially  from  the 
various  major  culture  areas  is  often  a  matter  of  doubt.  A 
trait  which  has  been  emphasized  in  one  area  may  be  genuinely 
absent  in  another  area;  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  have  been 
merely  omitted;  or,  again,  it  may  have  been  so  differently  stated 
that  its  comparability  with  the  material  in  question  could  be 
determined  only  by  renewed  investigation  in  the  field.  This 
source  of  error  cannot  at  the  present  time  be  eliminated  from  a 
study  such  as  this,  and  further  investigations  may  reject 
certain  specific  statements  which  are  quoted  in  this  discussion. 
The  caution  must  be  borne  constantly  in  mind,  and  it  is  for 
this  reason  that  there  is  in  this  paper  no  discussion  of  the 
relation  of  the  guardian-spirit  concept  to  the  idea  of  mana, 
or  impersonal  magic  power.  The  comparative  data  for  this  are 
too  unstandardized,  too  subject  to  the  personal  equation.  The 
most  that  can  be  done  on  this  subject  for  some  time  to  come 
is  in  the  accumulation  of  material  from  individuals  of  many 
tribes. 

Even  in  the  more  objectively  determinable  issues  which  are 
raised  in  this  paper  the  same  source  of  error  must  not  be  lost 
sight  of;  it  explains  the  impossibility  of  assigning  complete 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


9 


distribution  to  most  of  the  phenomena,  and  the  necessity  of 
avoiding  conclusions  which  would  be  invalidated  by  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  an  exception.  With  every  allowance  for  the  method¬ 
ological  limitations,  there  is  nevertheless  much  concerning  the 
nature  of  culture-traits  that  can  reasonably  be  investigated 
from  the  available  material. 

I.  Types  of  Guardian  Spirit  Experience 

The  concept  of  the  guardian  spirit  as  it  is  found  in  North 
America  has  an  enormously  wide  distribution.  Its  historical 
unity  is  of  course  obvious  to  Graebner,  Elliot  Smith,  and  their 
schools;  the  mere  catalogue  of  the  facts  as  they  have  been 
authoritatively  reported  from  eastern  Siberia,  across  the 
length  and  breadth  of  North  America,  and  down  into  South 
America,  is  for  them  entirely  sufficient.  But  more  than  this, 
the  concept  in  some  form  or  other  is  not  only  recognizable  as 
locally  present  over  this  vast  area;  the  distribution  is  also, 
except  for  certain  tribal  variations  and  overlays,  continuous. 
These  overlays,  as  we  shall  see,  are  typically  secondary  explana¬ 
tions  attaching  to  the  habitual  guardian-spirit  practices  of  the 
area.  From  a  psychological  point  of  view  such  cases  as  the 
Pawnee  or  the  Mohave  do  indeed  break  the  continuity;  not, 
however,  from  the  historical. 

It  has  always  been  rare  to  find  this  distinction  recognized. 
The  fact  of  historical  connection  has  usually  in  theoretical 
discussions  been  regarded  as  involving  a  psychological  unity 
of  role.  The  two  aspects  are,  however,  by  no  means  equivalent. 
Historical  unity  we  can  read  from  the  face-value  of  the  facts  of 
distribution;  psychological  unity  or  lack  of  unity,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  can  be  determined  only  by  a  critical  analysis  of  its  connota¬ 
tions,  and  of  the  roles  which  the  concept  plays  in  cultural  life. 

It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  realize  in  its  full  force  the  diver¬ 
gence  of  these  connotations  and  roles  in  the  case  of  the  guardian- 
spirit  concept.  Ideally  it  should  be  possible  to  construct  a 
composite  picture  of  these  beliefs  as  they  play  their  part  in 


10  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIA TION  [memoirs,  29 

each  of  the  major  areas  of  unlike  culture  on  the  continent. 
This,  however,  is  impossible;  divergences  in  each  culture  area, 
even  between  tribes  in  close  association,  are  too  great.  In  spite 
of  this,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  each  of  the  culture  areas  of 
North  America  has  a  certain  identifiable  interpretation  of  the 
guardian-spirit  idea,  and  it  is  possible  to  give  some  notion  of 
this  briefly  by  description  of  the  concept  as  it  appears  in 
rather  arbitrarily  selected  tribes. 

The  type  picture  of  the  North  American  guardian-spirit 
practices  corresponds  most  nearly  to  the  customs  of  the 
Plateau  area,  let  us  say  the  Thompson  River  Indians.8  There 
was  here  the  isolation  in  the  mountains  at  puberty,  the  long 
ceremonial  purification,  the  intentness  upon  supernatural 
communication,  and  the  acquisition  of  the  name  and  power  and 
song  of  the  guardian  spirit  in  a  vision.  For  months  or  even 
years  the  youths  carried  out  strict  dietary  regulations  with 
frequent  rigid  fasts;  purged  themselves  with  medicine,  and 
induced  vomiting  by  pliant  sticks;  purified  themselves  by  sweat 
bathing,  followed  by  a  plunge  into  the  cold  stream.  There 
were  no  limitations  of  rank  or  ownership  upon  the  experience  or 
the  tutelary  spirits;  the  quest  was  open  to  and  incumbent  upon 
all  the  young  men  of  the  tribe. 

But  the  practices  did  not  drive  so  straight  to  the  mark  as  it 
might  appear.  The  emphasis  upon  the  rites  of  the  adolescent 
girl  and  the  adolescent  boy  was  with  the  Thompson  very  nearly 
equal.  In  the  boys’  ceremonial  the  guardian-spirit  idea  was  the 
dominant  motive;  in  the  girls’,  it  was  very  nearly  lacking.  It  was 
not  that  there  was  absolute  sex-taboo  in  the  matter  of  tutelaries; 
girls  might  obtain  a  basket,  a  kettle,  or  a  root-digger,  or,  among 
the  animals,  a  mountain  goat.  But  these  exceptions  played 
little  part  in  their  adolescent  rites,  which  were  motivated  by 
other  ideas  than  the  attainment  of  tutelaries.  Yet  both  the 
boys’  and  the  girls’  puberty  rites  were  in  the  main  the  expression 
of  one  idea — that  “cleanness”  and  endurance  at  this  period 


8Teit:  Thompson  Indians. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


11 


affected  the  adult  life  directly.  Thus  the  girl  sat  in  her  seclu¬ 
sion-lodge  picking  off  the  needles  from  great  spruce  branches, 
one  by  one,  that  she  might  never  be  lazy.  Or,  if  she  wished 
to  grow  taller,  she  cut  her  lodge-pole  long,  and  stretched  herself 
by  it,  praying  to  the  Dawn.  The  boy  spent  his  time  in  activities 
of  sympathetic  magic  that  had  a  like  import.  Those  who 
desired  to  become  hunters  practised  hunting  and  shooting  in  a 
ceremonial  way;  those  who  desired  to  become  warriors  per¬ 
formed  mimic  battles.  The  would-be  gamblers  played  with 
gambling  sticks.  At  night  the  youths  made  round  holes  in 
boulders  with  a  jade  adze  to  make  their  arms  tireless  and  their 
hands  dextrous. 

This  dominant  idea  of  puberty  training  in  the  vision  quest 
of  the  Thompson  is  clear  also  in  other  ways.  The  vision  and 
the  acquisition  of  the  guardian  spirit  was  here  not  necessarily 
the  climax  of  the  experience.9  After  the  guardian  spirit  mani¬ 
fested  itself,  the  training  continued;  only  now  the  suppliant 
addressed  his  guardian  spirit  in  his  prayers,  not  the  Dawn  of 
Day.  The  direct  concern  with  magical  apprenticeship  for 
adult  life  had  brought  about  also  the  only  classification  of 
spirits  that  was  recognized  by  the  Thompson — that  into  patrons 
of  the  several  professions.  The  animals  and  things  which 
might  become  guardian  spirits  were  almost  limitless,  including 
the  weather,  dwarfs,  the  nipple  of  a  gun,  horseflies,  kettles, 
and  objects  referring  to  death.  But  very  nearly  all  the  natural 
phenomena  of  the  world  were  distinctive  as  guardian  spirits  of 
one  or  other  profession.  Shamans,  warriors,  fishermen,  hunters, 
and  gamblers  had  each  their  recognizable  guardians.  The  hun¬ 
ter  called  on  his  guardian  spirit  for  success  with  the  deer,  the 
gambler  for  luck  in  the  game,  and  the  shaman  to  tell  him  the 
cause  of  illness  and  the  means  of  curing  it.  Those  who  had 
similar  guardian  spirits,  however,  recognized  no  other  sort  of 
social  bond;  there  were  no  collective  rites  of  any  sort,  not 
even  temporary  groupings  in  ceremonial,  for  guardian  spirits 


9Teit:  Lillooet,  p.  265. 


12 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


were  avoided  in  their  imitative  dancing,  and  they  satisfied  them¬ 
selves  with  mimicry  of  prairie  chickens,  hares,  or  geese  which 
had,  they  considered,  no  magic  power.10 

On  the  coast,  northwest  of  the  Thompson,  are  the  Kwakiutl 
Indians,  whose  guardian-spirit  attitudes  and  practices  present 
an  almost  categorical  antithesis  to  those  of  the  Thompson 
River.11  The  guardian  spirit  here  was  an  hereditary  caste 
mark.  Rights  to  the  particular  guardian  were  determined  by 
inheritance,  by  marriage,  and  by  killing  the  former  owner. 
One  might  not  see  a  tutelary  in  his  vision  until  his  family  had 
arranged  to  “pay  for  his  ecstacy”;  a  marriage  must  have  been 
arranged  with  a  woman  having  the  hereditary  right  to  pass  on 
the  “crest”;  in  addition,  the  elders  of  the  group  assembled  in 
council  must  have  given  their  consent.12  In  fact  the  guardian 
spirit  experience  had  been  here  so  taken  up  into  the  complex 
social  organization  that  any  regulation  of  the  social  structure 
must  necessarily  work  through  the  regulation  of  the  usual 
guardian  spirits.  The  tutelaries,  then,  were  preeminently 
the  badge  of  rank  in  the  clan  and  in  the  secret  societies.  Social 
progress  in  both  was  made  by  the  acquisition  of  additional 
guardians.  They  were  wealth  directly  also;  guardian  spirits, 
their  insignia,  the  legends  of  their  past  encounters  with  an¬ 
cestors,  had  come  to  be  of  more  value  as  personal  possessions 
than  any  other  form  of  private  property. 

This  character  of  the  guardian-spirit  experience  as  wealth 
and  badge  of  rank  had  of  course  made  fundamental  changes 
in  practice.  The  vision  by  which  theoretically  the  guardian 
spirit  was  attained  had  become  formal  to  a  degree;  the  specific 
“vision”  character  of  the  experience  was  here  translated  into  an 
elaborate  dramatization  of  seclusion  with  the  spirits,  “posses¬ 
sion,”  and  of  the  restoration  to  normal  conditions.  This  drama¬ 
tization  underlay  the  greater  part  of  the  enormously 


10  Boas:  Art,  in  Teit,  Thompson  River  Indians,  p.  385. 

11  Boas:  Kwakiutl. 

12  Boas:  Report  on  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  830. 


V 


benedict]  THE,  GUARDI  AN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA  13 

elaborate  winter  ceremonial.  It  associated  with  itself  their 
custom  of  “potlatching,”  so  that  it  became  essential,  when  a 
man  returned  under  the  influence  of  the  spirits  and  gave  his 
hereditary  dance,  that  blankets  should  be  distributed  in  his 
name  to  all  those  who  were  present.13 

The  second  fundamental  change  occasioned  by  the  concept 
of  the  guardian  spirit  as  hereditary  wealth  was  in  the  character 
of  the  tutelaries  themselves.  They  became  very  definitely 
limited  in  numbers,  and  in  the  process,  and  under  the  double 
influence  of  art  and  legend,  very  strongly  individualized  as 
mythological  characters.  The  limitless  guardians  of  the 
Thompson  are  unthinkable  here;  we  have  instead  Wina/lag'ilis, 
Making-War-over-all-the-Earth,  who  never  leaves  off  traveling 
in  his  canoe,  and  BaxbakualanuXsi'wae,  the  cannibal  from 
whose  house  red  smoke  arises,  while  his  slave,  the  raven,  eats 
the  eyes  of  his  master’s  victims,  and  a  fabulous  bird  lives  upon 
their  brains.14 

These  mythological  beings  are  further  individualized  with 
very  definite  gifts  which  they  bestow  upon  those  within  their 
protection;  the  idea  is  no  longer  here  as  among  the  Thompson 
that  one  partakes  of  the  natural  characteristics  of  one’s  guardian 
spirit,  but  is  instead  definitely  determined  by  the  folkloristic 
background. 

It  is  curious  to  follow  out  the  elaborate  adaptation  of  some 
one  particular  feature  which  is  found  only  as  a  hint  in  another 
setting.  We  have  seen  that  among  the  Thompson,  as  in  very 
many  other  tribes,  a  man  received  a  name  from  his  guardian 
spirit.  Among  the  Thompson  this  name  was  sometimes 
inherited,  in  connection  particularly  with  their  conception  of 
rebirth  of  relatives  in  children  born  soon  after  their  death. 
But  among  the  Kwakiutl,  this  hint  of  a  new  name,  taken  up 
into  the  social  system,  became,  for  a  large  part  of  the  year,  the 


13  Boas:  Kwakiutl  Texts,  p.  489,  for  description  of  the  return  of  the  “Can¬ 
nibal.” 

14  Boas:  Kwakiutl,  p.  394. 


14 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


basis  of  rank  and  organization  in  the  tribe.  When  the  winter 
ceremonial  began,  the  “season  of  the  secrets/’  clan  names  were 
dropped,  and  each  man  assumed  his  tutelary  name.  The  whole 
clan  organization  being  based  on  names,  it  assumed  a  different 
aspect  altogether,  and  the  tribe  was  grouped  for  the  winter 
months,  not  according  to  birth,  but  according  to  the  spirits 
who  had  initiated  them. 

If  among  the  Thompson  the  guardian  spirits  were  procured 
by  all  men  of  the  tribe,  and  among  the  Kwakiutl  were  omitted 
only  because  of  low  social  rank,  among  the  Shasta  of  California 
they  were  solely  the  prerogative  of  the  shamans.15  Tutelaries 
tended  to  present  themselves  to  the  children  of  medicine  men,  or 
medicine  women,  since  the  greater  number  of  Shasta  shamans 
were  women.  Predisposition,  however,  was  essential,  and 
manifested  itself  in  stereotyped  dreams.  During  this  time 
dietary  taboos  are  observed,  and  then  suddenly  some  day,  as 
the  shaman  is  about  her  regular  work,  she  will  “die,”  and,  in 
her  trance,  see  her  guardian  spirit.  These  tutelaries  are  of  very 
set  character.  Every  Shasta  who  has  a  vision  sees  an  Axeki, 
a  man  in  appearance,  but  very  small,  carrying  a  tiny  bow  and 
arrow.  This  Axeki  sings  him  a  song  which  he  must  repeat  on 
pain  of  immediate  death.  If  he  succeeds,  the  song  is  his  to  use 
in  his  medicine  practice,  and  the  Axeki  tells  him  his  name  and 
where  he  lives.  He  then  gives  him  his  peculiar  insignia  as  a 
shaman:  the  “pain” — a  short,  sharpened  splinter  as  of  glass,  or 
ice,  which  he  will  carry  throughout  life. 

The  prospective  shaman  must  now  gather  together  the 
necessary  “pain”  paraphernalia:  ten  buckskins,  ten  silver-gray 
fox  skins,  ten  wolf  skins,  ten  coyote  skins,  tail  and  wing  feathers 
of  ten  eagles,  et  cetera.  These  must  be  at  hand  before  he 
attempts  his  first  cure  and  a  similar  collection  must  be  obtained 
severally  for  each  “pain”  procured.  Since  all  shamans  obtained 
three  “pains”  in  the  first  year,  it  was  several  years  before  the 
collection  was  complete.  When  these  had  been  collected,  a  five- 


15  Dixon:  Shasta. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


15 


nights’  dance  was  held,  culminating  in  further  trances,  and 
tribal  dances  were  undertaken  as  a  sign  of  readiness  to  qualify 
as  a  completely  equipped  shaman. 

The  guardian-spirit  concept  on  the  Great  Plains  had 
developed  along  still  different  lines.  There  is  enormous  tribal 
diversity;  the  Crow,  however,  illustrate,  along  with  their  own 
tribal  bias,  certain  widely  diffused  Plains  traits.  In  the  first 
place,  there  was  no  limitation  of  age  or  sex,  so  far  as  a 
vision  was  concerned;  “middle-aged  and  even  old  men  would 
go  out  fasting.”16  And  the  vision  was  commonly  obtained  after 
definite  pursuit,  carried  on  by  isolation,  fasting,  and  self-torture. 
Those  who  were  the  recipients  of  involuntary  visions  were 
regarded  as  exceptionally  fortunate  since  they  escaped  the 
necessity  of  torturing  themselves.17  The  average  warrior 
retired  to  the  mountains  fasting,  and  tortured  himself  by  some 
form  of  self-laceration.  “Medicine  Crow,”  for  instance,  “fasted 
for  four  days.  He  cut  off  a  finger  and  offered  it  to  the  Sun, 
‘Sun  look  at  me,  I  am  poor.  I  wish  to  own  horses.  Make  me 
wealthy.  That  is  why  I  give  you  my  little  finger.’  The  blood 
poured  down.  He  fell  dead.  Toward  dawn  he  saw  a  young 
man  and  a  young  woman  coming  from  the  west.”  They  talked 
with  him,  gave  him  medicine  and  showed  him  each  twenty  head 
of  horses.  They  turned  out  to  be  Tobacco,  and  gave  him 
ceremonial  directions  concerning  the  Tobacco  Society.  Sub¬ 
sequently  he  came  to  own  many  horses  and  organized  a  chapter 
of  the  Tobacco  Society,  according  to  his  instructions  in  his 
vision.18 

The  seeking  of  visions  is,  with  the  Crow,  a  much  more 
general  institution  than  that  of  procuring  a  guardian  spirit. 
Visions  are  sought  also  for  mourning,  for  revenge,  for  war 
parties,  for  calling  the  buffalo,  for  naming  children,  or  for 
general  strengthening.  The  tutelaries  are  nearly  always  animals 


16  Lowie:  Religion  of  the  Crow,  p.  332. 

17  Ibid,  p.  325. 

18  Lowie:  Crow  Tobacco  Society,  p.  117. 


16 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


though  they  appear  in  human  form  during  the  action  of  the 
vision.  They  give  always  a  song,  a  “power,”  and  describe 
some  memento  which  the  man  immediately  procures  and 
carries  throughout  life  as  a  token  of  his  vision.  The  maturity 
of  the  suppliant,  the  sought  vision,  the  torture,  the  medicine 

bundle,  are  all  held  rather  widely  on  the  Plains;  the  special 

/ 

characteristic  of  the  experience  to  the  Crow,  however,  is  a 
definitely  local  development,  found  only  in  weak  forms  in 
neighboring  tribes.  The  Crow  vision  is  a  ceremonial  “adoption” 
by  the  tutelary  spirits.  It  is  a  characteristic  pattern  of  Crow 
life:  the  ceremonial  transfer  conceived  as  an  adoption.  In  the 
Tobacco  Society  this  germ  has  developed  into  the  basis  of  the 
organization  of  the  most  prominent  ceremonial  complex  in  the 
tribe.  The  vision  merely  follows  the  tribal  pattern  and  adopts 
its  nomenclature.  The  regular  phrase  for  the  successful  sup¬ 
pliant  is  “the  dwarf-adopted  one,”  “the  buffalo-adopted  one”; 
the  being  addresses  him  in  set  words:  “I  make  you  my  son.” 
And  under  the  influence  of  this  phraseology  the  Crow  comes,  at 
least  in  certain  cases,  to  conceive  a  sort  of  parental  responsibility 
on  the  part  of  this  “father”  that  is  foreign  to  the  thought  of 
other  tribes. 

In  the  Southeast,  guardian-spirit  practices  can  be  recon¬ 
structed  only  in  part.  Old  records  establish  the  reality  of  the 
aboriginal  trait,19  but  most  customs  pertaining  to  it  are  now 
forgotten.  It  has  also  been  modified  in  different  ways  by  its 
contact  with  the  totemic  idea  in  the  sib  organization. 
Among  the  Chickasaw20  the  guardian-spirit  concept  is 
found  incorporated  in  the  totemic  system  as  the  common 
property  of  all  men  of  the  tribe.  “The  totem  of  the  clan  is  also 
the  guardian  spirit  of  the  men  of  that  clan,  who  hold  their 
totem  animal  and  his  earthly  representative  as  guides,  kinsmen, 
and  special  overseers.”  It  is  a  democratic  rite  in  the  same  sense 


18  Charlevoix  and  Luxembourg  Memoir,  in  Swanton,  Tribes  of  the  Lower 
Mississippi,  pp.  178,  179;  Hawkins:  Creek  Confederacy,  p.  78. 

20  Speck:  Chickasaw. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


17 


that  it  was  for  the  Crow,  but  the  guardian-spirit  experience — 
that  is,  the  vision — has  become  split  off,  and  is  here  the  pre¬ 
rogative  of  the  shaman.  The  aspirant  had  to  buy  from  an  old 
shaman  the  instructions  for  diagnosis,  the  herbs,  and  the  songs. 
The  real  power,  however,  came  from  “the  little  people  of  his 
clan” — his  ancestors,  that  is,  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the 
words,  conceived  as  spirits  living  in  the  woods.  To  seek  them, 
the  candidate  fasted  in  the  woods  alone  and  entirely  naked 
except  for  the  red  ceremonial  paint,  while  “the  people  of  his 
clan”  cared  for  him,  and  taught  him  in  detail  all  he  should  know. 

The  Yuchi  data  make  this  even  plainer.21  The  great  annual 
scarification  ceremony  in  the  public  square-ground  was  primarily 
a  totemic  rite.  For  the  youth  it  was,  however,  an  equivalent 
of  the  usual  acquisition  of  a  guardian  spirit.  So  far  from  having 
lost  the  guardian-spirit  idea  in  this  reinterpretation,  the  con¬ 
cept  formed  the  basis  of  their  hunting  and  fishing  and  war. 
In  all  three  it  was  primarily  a  matter  of  overthrowing  the 
guardian  spirit  first,  of  the  animal,  or  fish,  or  enemy.  Only  so 
could  they  hope  to  overthrow  their  bodies. 

None  of  all  these  varying  concepts  of  the  character  and  role 
of  the  guardian  spirit,  however,  would  give  us  a  hint  of  the 
attitude  which  prevails  among  the  Penobscot  and  the  affiliated 
tribes  of  eastern  Canada.  Here  the  guardian  spirit  is  essentially 
a  disguise  which  the  shaman  is  able  to  assume  in  punishing 
trespassers  upon  his  family  hunting  territory,  and  in  super¬ 
natural  contests  with  rival  shamans.  Only  shamans,  family 
or  tribal,  have  guardian  spirits.  The  usual  way  to  acquire  one 
was  to  go  out  by  the  shore  of  a  lake  or  in  the  woods  and  sing 
to  it.  “Gradually  it  would  appear  and  the  witch  man  would 
stroke  it  with  his  hand  in  order  to  bind  it  to  him  as  a  servant.”22 
But  the  sanction  of  this  experience  was  not,  except  in  ex¬ 
traordinary  circumstances,  the  power  of  healing;  doctoring  was 

21  Speck:  The  Yuchi. 

22  Speck:  Penobscot  Shamanism,  p.  252. 


18 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


an  essentially  popular  herbalism  disassociated  from  magic 
or  religion.23 

The  great  sanction  obtained  from  guardian  spirits  among  the 
Penobscot  was  supremacy  in  magic  contests  with  rival  shamans. 
Tales  of  these  rivalries  formed  the  great  bulk  of  all  Wabanaki 
mythology.  The  literal  meaning  of  the  native  word  designating 
these  guardian  spirits  is  “that  by  which  magic  is  performed. ” 
While  these  helpers  were  away  on  their  errands,  the  owner 
remained  inert;  if  the  helper  was  killed,  the  shaman  would  also 
die.  There  was  no  organization  among  these  baohigan- posses¬ 
sors;  there  were,  however,  two  different  sorts:  first,  the  family- 
group  shaman,  whose  function  was  to  protect  the  family  hunting 
grounds  against  trespassers;  and  second,  the  village  or  tribal 
shaman,  whose  contests  with  the  representatives  of  other 
villages  and  tribes  were  so  important  a  part  of  native  thought. 
Those  shamans  who  protected  the  family  hunting  grounds 
figure  in  a  number  of  myths,24  and  they  both  detected  the 
intruder  and  spiritually  persecuted  him. 

Among  the  Central  Eskimo  and  those  of  Baffin  Land, 
guardian-spirit  practices,  along  with  all  sorts  of  other  cultural 
customs  and  beliefs,  are  knit  up  with  the  myth  of  the  origin  of 
sea  animals.25  The  acquisition  of  a  guardian  makes  one  a 
shaman;  and,  besides  the  necessary  meeting  with  the  monster 
or  bear  or  spirit-woman,  payment  for  instruction  to  an  accred¬ 
ited  shaman  may  be  required.  The  powers  which  the  guardian 
gives  are  all  to  be  understood  only  by  reference  to  the  Sedna 
legend.  All  sea  animals  were  created  from  the  fingers  of  this 
woman,  who  had  power  to  give  or  to  withhold  these  animals  from 
the  hunters.  Lack  of  success  is  caused  by  the  violations  of 
taboo  on  the  part  of  any  Eskimo  in  the  tribe,  and  these  cause, 
in  their  conception,  certain  dark  attachments  to  Sedna  herself, 


23  Speck:  Medical  Practices  of  the  Northeastern  Algonkians. 

24  Speck:  Penobscot  Tales,  pp.  23,  35,  64. 

2o  Boas:  Religious  Beliefs  of  the  Central  Eskimo;  The  Eskimo  of  Baffin 
Land. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


19 


and  to  the  offender.  These  are  visible  to  all  sea  animals, 
but  can  be  seen  among  humans  only  by  those  with  guardian 
spirits.  The  preeminent  use  to  which  tutelaries  are  put  is  to 
detect  these  attachments  and  to  remove  them.  Once  every 
year,  or  in  some  communities  only  when  bad  weather  and  star¬ 
vation  continue  for  a  long  time,  an  important  ceremony  is  held 
in  which  powerful  angekok  visit  Sedna  in  the  under-world,  by 
help  of  their  guardian  spirits,  and  free  her  of  all  accumulated 
attachments. 

The  medical  practices  of  the  angekok  are  directed  by  the  same 
ideas.  These  attachments  cause  illness  to  the  transgressor,  and 
if  not  removed,  he  must  die.  Absolute  truth  is  obligatory  in 
answering  the  shaman’s  questions,  who  by  help  of  his  tutelary 
will  divine  the  broken  taboo,  which  is  then  completely  removed 
by  confession. 

A  survey  such  as  this  of  the  varying  conceptions  of  the  nature 
and  role  of  the  guardian  spirit  among  the  American  Indians 
could  be  indefinitely  extended.  These  examples  have  been 
chosen  as  more  or  less  roughly  indicating  the  concept  in  the 
major  culture  areas  of  North  America.  They  cannot  possibly 
even  indicate  divergencies  that  are  in  certain  aspects  funda¬ 
mental  between  even  contiguous  tribes.  The  guardian  spirit 
may  descend  by  inheritance,  by  purchase,  or  by  adoption  in 
three  neighboring  tribes,  and  in  the  fourth  be  obtained  exclu¬ 
sively  by  a  vision  induced  by  torture.  It  may  be  sought  by  an 
isolated  fast,  or  induced  by  a  jimson  weed  decoction,  or  regarded 
as  essentially  unsought.  It  may  be  undertaken  at  puberty  or 
by  mature  men.  It  may  have  entered  into  a  close  relationship 
with  the  social  organization,  or  it  may  stand  conspicuously 
outside. 

II.  The  Common  Element 

In  the  midst  of  such  diversity,  is  there  yet  some  common 
element,  some  aspect  which  holds  for  all  guardian-spirit  atti¬ 
tudes,  no  matter  how  divergent?  The  difficulty  has  been 
that  it  is  too  closely  interwoven  with  the  whole  concept  of  the 


20 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


tutelary  to  be  commented  upon:  the  vision  has  passed,  with 
anthropologists  as  with  the  aborigines,  as  an  inextricably  in¬ 
volved  element.  Nevertheless  there  is  logically  nothing  at  all 
in  the  guardian-spirit  concept  that  calls  for  its  association  with 
that  of  a  psychic  experience.  Their  relationship  is  dialectically 
fortuitous,  and  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to  realize  the  form¬ 
ality  of  the  convention  by  which  they  are  found  associated 
together.  If  the  vision  over  all  North  America  runs  by  a 
formula  according  to  which  some  animal,  or  voice,  or  thing 
appears  to  the  suppliant  and  talks  with  him,  describing  the 
power  bestowed  on  him  and  giving  him  songs,  mementoes, 
taboos,  and  perhaps  ceremonial  procedure,  and  thereafter 
remains  his  life-long  protector,  the  matter  is  highly  formal, 
and  has  not  assumed  its  present  aspect  by  psychological 
necessity. 

We  can  see  this  most  vividly  from  illustrations  of  guardian- 
spirit  concepts  from  other  continents  where  this  connection 
with  the  vision  does  not  exist.  Guardian  spirits  played  a 
large  role  among  the  Chukchee  of  eastern  Siberia,  as  village, 
house,  and  individual  tutelaries.  Psychic  experiences  were 
likewise  exceedingly  common,  and  formed  the  stock-in-trade  of 
their  shamans.  The  two,  however,  had  no  particular  relation 
to  each  other;  a  man  acquired  a  tutelary  by  stumbling  over  an 
oddly  shaped  stone,  or  bit  of  wood,  or  by  fashioning  some¬ 
thing  himself.26 

Among  the  Euahlayi  of  Australia,  all  medicine  men  have 
tutelaries  which  are  known  as  yunbeai.  They  have  their  abode 
in  animals,  and  the  eating  of  their  flesh  is  taboo  to  the  individ¬ 
ual.  Injury  to  the  animal  causes  injury  to  the  owner.  He  can 
assume  its  shape  in  danger.  They  are,  however,  bestowed  by 
shamans;  they  are  “acquired  by  chance” — when  very  ill, 
the  medicine  man  will  bestow  yunbeai  in  order  to  strengthen  the 
patient  or,  on  his  death-bed,  will  give  it  to  a  successor.27 


26  Bogoras:  Chukchee,  Religion,  pp.  88-90. 

27  Parker:  Euahlayi  Tribe,  pp.  20,  21. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


21 


Among  the  Wiranjuri,  in  the  proceeding  that  makes  one  a 
shaman,  father  and  son  go  out  to  the  bush  together.  The 
father  places  two  large  quartz  crystals  against  the  boy’s  breast, 
and  they  vanish  into  him.  This  makes  him  clever  and  able  to 
bring  things  up — that  is,  produce  crystals  that  cause  illness. 
After  a  proceeding  at  a  grave,  the  father  points  to  an  animal, 
in  this  case  a  tiger  snake,  saying  “that  is  your  budjam  (tutelary) ; 
it  is  mine  also.”28 

The  Watchantis  regard  the  soul  of  the  first  man  slain  by  a 
young  warrior  as  his  “woorie”  or  warning  spirit,  which  enters 
his  body  and  forewarns  him  of  danger  throughout  life.29 

In  the  island  of  Mota  in  the  Banks  Islands,  not  everyone  had 
a  personal  tutelary;  only  some  men  fancied  that  they  had  this 
relation  to  a  lizard,  a  snake,  or  it  might  be  a  stone.  Sometimes 
the  thing  was  sought  for  and  found  by  drinking  the  infusion  of 
certain  leaves,  and  heaping  together  the  dregs;  then  whatever 
living  thing  was  first  seen  in  or  upon  the  heap  was  the  tamaniu .30 
In  the  Banks  Islands  in  general,  a  man  who  had  entered  into 
such  a  relation  was  known  as  the  “owner”  of  the  spirit,  and 
made  requests  of  it  in  behalf  of  a  client,  accompanied  by 
offerings  of  native  money.31 

In  the  Philippines,  among  the  Bagobo,  there  are  personal 
war  gods  to  whom  prayer  sticks  are  erected  at  certain  festivals. 
They  belong  to  those  who  have  distinguished  themselves  by 
exploit,  and  thereafter  make  them  brave,  and  punish  infractions 
of  the  rules  of  ceremonial  war-deed  boasting.32 

In  Samoa,  tutelary  deities  were  determined  at  birth.  The 
help  of  proper  spirits  was  invoked  in  succession,  and  the  one 
who  happened  to  be  addressed  just  as  the  child  was  born  was 
fixed  upon  as  the  guardian.  These  spirits  were  embodied  in 


28  Iiowitt:  Southeast  Australia,  pp.  406,  407. 

29  Tylor:  Primitive  Culture,  p.  200. 

30  Codrington:  The  Melanesians,  p.  250  sq. 

31  Codrington:  Melanesians  (in  Hastings’s  Encyclopedia  of  Religion). 

32  Benedict:  Bagobo  Ceremonial,  p.  149. 


22 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


some  visible  incarnation,  and  the  owner  never  injured  it  or 
treated  it  with  contempt;  he  never  ate  its  flesh.33 

Among  the  Malays,  the  Pawang,  or  medicine  man,  keeps  a 
familiar  spirit.  It  may  descend  from  father  to  son,  but  a  man 
may  obtain  one  by  the  proper  process.  He  must  take  the 
midribs  of  three  cocoanut  palms  and  carry  them  with  the  help 
of  a  companion  to  the  grave  of  a  murdered  man,  at  the  time  of 
the  full  moon  when  it  falls  on  Tuesday.  He  fumigates  the  grave, 
calling  upon  the  dead  man  by  name  in  a  set  formula.  He  then 
fumigates  one  of  the  cocoa  palm  midribs,  laying  it  at  the  head 
of  the  grave.  The  applicant  and  his  companion  must  now  use 
the  other  two  midribs  as  canoe  paddles,  symbolizing  their 
journey  to  the  shades,  when  the  murdered  man  will  appear,  and 
to  him  he  addresses  his  formula  as  before.  The  ghost  is  hence¬ 
forth  his  familiar.34 

The  Ewe  (Matse  Stamm)  of  the  African  Slave  Coast  have  an 
entirely  different  conception  of  the  individual  protector.  Life 
and  death  in  this  world  are  understood  by  them  as  a  continua¬ 
tion  and  consequence  of  a  preexisting  life.  When  a  man  is 
about  to  leave  the  other  life,  he  is  obliged  to  give  a  promise  as 
to  the  length  of  time  he  will  remain  away.  When  this  is  up 
in  this  world,  he  will  die.  The  husband  or  wife  of  the  other 
life  who  is  left  behind  by  the  man  or  woman  at  birth  is  the 
guardian  spirit  of  this  life.  It  is  these  spirits’  duty  to  protect 
their  relatives  here.  The  man  on  his  marriage  in  this  world 
takes  good  care  that  his  preexisting  wife  shall  be  propitiated 
with  drink  and  clothing,  and  the  new  wife  tends  for  her  a  little 
altar  behind  the  house.  If  she  is  satisfied,  she  grants  them 
children,  and  gives  good  fortune  for  life.35 

The  Tshi-speaking  people  of  the  Gold  Coast,  again,  obtain 
their  tutelaries  by  personal  initiative.  These  are  known  as 
suhnan.  A  person  goes  out  into  the  recesses  of  the  forest  where 


33  Turner:  Samoa,  page  17. 

34  Skeat:  Malay  Magic,  p.  58  sq. 

35  Spieth:  Die  Ewe,  p.  806  sq. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


23 


Sasabonsum,  the  evil  deity,  has  his  home.  Here  he  prepares 
some  object  of  specified  sort — a  branch  roughly  notched  to 
indicate  head  and  body,  red  earth  mixed  to  a  paste  with  blood 
or  rum,  etc. — and  calls  upon  a  spirit  of  Sasabonsum  to  enter  it. 
To  test  whether  the  spirit  has  done  so,  he  squeezes  certain 
leaves  upon  the  object  saying,  “Eat  this  and  speak,”  when  a 
low  hissing  sound  is  heard  if  such  is  the  case.  If  he  is  satisfied, 
he  takes  it  home  and  watches  it  for  three  days.  If  he  has  good 
fortune,  he  presents  it  with  offerings  and  uses  it  to  bring  harm  to 
his  enemies.  If  not,  he  begins  again  from  the  beginning.36 

It  is  usual  to  consider  the  bush  soul  of  the  Cameroons,  and 
other  parts  of  West  Africa,  as  an  individual  tutelary,37  though 
it  is  generally  a  liability  rather  than  an  asset38  as  individual 
spirit  helpers  are  more  generally  considered  to  be.  However, 
there  are  similarities.  A  man’s  life  is  bound  up  with  the  life 
of  his  bush-soul  animal,  and  offerings  are  made  to  it  during 
sickness  from  the  idea  that  the  bush-soul  is  angry  at  being 
neglected.  A  person  may  take  the  bush-soul  of  his  father  or 
mother,  but,  in  any  case,  unless  a  man  is  a  diviner,  he  cannot 
see  his  own  bush-soul,  and  a  medicine  man  must  be  called  in 
to  indicate  it  for  him.39 

In  contrast  with  such  heterogeneous  practices  and  beliefs, 
in  North  America  the  vision  is  fundamental  in  the  guardian- 
spirit  complex.  Abnormal  psychology  has  of  late  years  given 
us  a  mass  of  material  by  which  to  understand  these  Indian 
visions.  It  is  no  longer  necessary  to  discuss  the  question  of 
whether  or  not  they  were  feigned.  Certainly  they  were  to  the 
Indian  unquestionable  means  of  obtaining  power.  Their 
authority  was  absolute.  People  thus  blest  were  generally,  on 
the  Plains,  regarded  as  bullet-proof,  and  they  advanced  in 
battle  accordingly.  Heckewelder  writes  of  the  Delaware  in 

36  Ellis:  The  Tshi-speaking  People,  p.  98  sq. 

37  See  N.  W.  Thomas:  “Perhaps  only  our  limited  knowledge  disguises  their 
identity.”  In  Article:  Animal:  Nagual,  in  Hastings’s  Encyclopedia  of  Religion. 

38  But  see  Talbot,  Shadow  of  the  Bush,  p.  80  sq. 

39  Kingsley:  Travels  in  West  Africa,  p.  459,  sq. 


24 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


1800,  “The  belief  in  the  truth  of  these  visions  is  universal  among 
the  Indians.  I  have  spoken  with  several  of  their  old  men  who 
had  been  highly  distinguished  for  their  valor,  and  asked  them 
whether  they  ascribed  their  achievements  to  natural  or  super¬ 
natural  causes  and  they  uniformly  answered  that,  as  they  knew 
beforehand  what  they  could  do,  they  did  it,  of  course.”40 
A  tall  tree  stood  in  the  region  of  the  Kootenay,  from  which 
Indians  had  thrown  themselves  in  recent  times  in  the  belief 
that  they  had  been  granted  the  power  of  flying.41  A  similar 
attempt  is  recorded  of  a  Blackfoot  medicine  man  who  neverthe¬ 
less  survived  his  leap  from  the  cliff.42 

According  to  the  Indian  pattern,  psychic  experiences  were 
socially  recognized  and  made  the  very  cornerstone  of  their 
cultural  life.  We  shall  see  that  there  is  an  enormous  tribal 
conventionalization  of  the  vision  events.  Nevertheless, 
recorded  experiences  from  every  part  of  North  America  all  go 
to  prove  one  point:  that  a  feeling  of  significance,  a  “thrill” 
of  greater  or  less  intensity,  was  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the 
vision.  The  Blackfoot  makes  this  plain  in  a  case  where  vision 
experiences  were  remarkably  unstereotyped.  These  consisted 
of  occurrences  of  the  ordinary  daily  type — an  animal,  bird,  or 
thing,  seen  by  the  suppliant  in  some  everyday  connection: 
the  swollen  white  wood-worm  which  crawled  out  of  a  decaying 
log  as  it  began  to  burn  on  the  hearth;  the  eagle,  under  whose 
particularly  tall  nesting  tree  one  had  unwittingly  made  camp; 
the  skunk  who  followed  and  was  fed.43  There  were  here  no 
formulas;  actual  and  rather  minor  occurrences  acquired  on 
certain  occasions  emotional  coloring  and  were  thereby  selected 
as  significant.  Dr.  Wissler  records  his  impression,  “that  any¬ 
thing  short  of  a  dream  or  a  vision  (the  normal  workings  of  the 
mind  of  a  person  awake)  would  be  rejected  by  a  body  of  intelli¬ 
gent  Blackfoot  as  of  no  medicinal  value.”44 

40  Hecke welder:  Indians  of  Pennsylvania,  p.  238. 

41  Chamberlain:  Kootenay,  p.  559. 

42  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Bundles,  p.  77. 

43  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Traditions,  pp.  91,  104,  etc. 

44  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Bundles,  p.  101. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


25 


This  characteristic  of  vision  experiences  is,  however,  not  lost 
even  with  striking  formalization  of  the  vision  content.  This  is 
strikingly  attested  by  the  persistent  record  of  failure  in  the 
quest.  Most  tribes  where  information  is  at  all  full  mention 
more  or  less  common  lack  of  success.  On  Puget  Sound,  out  of  a 
family  of  seven,  all  of  whom  sought  the  spirits,  only  one  brother 
and  sister  succeeded.45  Of  the  many  Omaha  who  “spent  days 
and  nights  in  this  way,  those  who  met  with  success  were  very 
few.”46  A  Pawnee  story  tells  of  a  man  who  pretended  success. 
“There  he  stayed  and  cried.  He  heard  no  strange  noises; 
neither  was  he  put  to  sleep  in  order  to  be  taken  into  the  lodge 
of  the  animals,  and  he  knew  all  the  time  that  he  received  no 
power  from  any  one.”  The  story  of  his  pretense  is  fully 
moralized.47  Among  the  Bellacoola,  if  a  person  falsely  pre¬ 
tended  to  have  received  the  gift  of  shamanism  and  tried  to  suck 
out  diseases  from  a  patient,  he  would  himself  fall  ill.48  Among 
the  Nez  Perce  pretense  aroused  the  enmity  of  the  guardian 
animal,  who  avenged  the  insult.49 

Not  only  were  more  or  less  numerous  people  unable  to  obtain 
a  vision,  but  subsequent  visions  could  not  always  be  obtained 
by  one  already  blest.  A  Crow,  for  instance,  had  a  vision  during 
sleep,  unsought;  but  though  he  afterwards  tortured  himself  with 
all  the  usual  tribal  lacerations,  he  could  not  again  attain  it.50 
There  was  therefore,  in  general,  a  very  definite  attitude  toward 
the  vision  as  a  recognized  experience;  one  in  which  success  or 
failure  was  evident  to  the  seeker.  The  generalization  must  not 
be  made  too  sweeping;  the  fact  of  failure  was  a  cultural  pattern 
too.  Among  the  Kwakiutl  it  would  have  been  absurd;  they 
had  made  other  cultural  connections  with  this  concept,  and 
there  the  vision  as  an  experience  was  probably  as  nearly  a 

45  Haeberlin:  Puget  Sound  MSS. 

46  La  Flesche:  Omaha  Funeral  Customs,  p.  3. 

47  Dorsey:  The  Pawnee,  p.  395. 

48  Boas:  Third  Report  of  the  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  421. 

49  Spinden:  Nez  Perce,  p.  249. 

50  Lowie:  Crow  Religion,  p.  338. 


26 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


social  fiction  as  anywhere  in  North  America.  But  assurance 
of  success  could  come  from  a  diametrically  opposite  reason. 
Among  the  California  Maidu  none  ever  failed  if  they  undertook 
it;  but  here  it  was  because  the  predisposition  had  to  be  mani¬ 
fest  before  the  final  step  was  taken. 

In  the  second  place  this  vision  in  North  America  was  not  a 
synonym  for  dreams.  These  had  their  part,  and  are  frequently 
referred  to,  but  they  came  to  the  fortunate  son  of  a  great  sha¬ 
man,  or  to  the  strong  medicine  man  who  had  been  already 
blessed  by  visions.  In  other  words  their  character  was  ordi¬ 
narily  interpreted  as  auxiliary  to  the  actual  vision,  and  only  to 
be  appropriated  by  those  whose  supernatural  powers  were 
already  acknowledged.  The  Pawnee  conventionalized  a 
definite  correlation  of  dreams  and  visions.  The  dream  was 
granted  first,  and  if  it  was  obeyed — by  going  to  find  or  meet 
the  spirit — the  vision  was  granted.51  Among  the  Shasta  and 
the  Maidu,  predisposition  was  manifested  in  dreams  which  were 
subsequently  followed  by  the  vision  itself.52 

There  are,  besides,  to  be  sure,  local  areas  where,  as  we  shall 
see  later,  the  primary  stress  is  laid  on  dreams  as  such,  as 
among  the  Iroquois,  and  also  at  the  opposite  corner  of  the 
continent  among  the  Mohave.  But  these  exceptions  tend  only 
to  emphasize  by  contrast  the  usual  rule. 

Any  general  identification  with  dreams  is  dispelled,  further, 
by  the  Indian  theories  of  vision  inducement.  They  recognized, 
everywhere,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  two  types  known  to  modern 
experiments  in  psychic  phenomena — involuntary,  and  induced 
experiences.  With  the  Indians,  however,  one  or  other  of  the 
two  attitudes  was  stressed  over  enormous  areas.  East  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  the  emphasis  is  upon  the  sought  vision 
induced  by  hunger,  thirst,  purgatives,  and  self-laceration.  To 
the  west  of  the  Rockies,  though  we  find  there  also  the  deliberate 
vision  quest,  a  very  widespread  attitude  regards  the  vision  as 


51  Dorsey:  Pawnee,  pp.  52,  86,  102,  123,  206,  etc. 

52  Dixon:  Northern  Maidu,  p.  269;  Shasta,  p.  471  sq. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


27 


unsought,  involuntary,  a  thing  of  predisposition.  As  among  the 
Koryak  of  the  Asiatic  tundras,  no  one  of  his  own  free  will  can 
have  the  vision,53  so  among  the  Shasta,  as  we  saw,  it  is  predis¬ 
position  that  expresses  itself  in  dreams,  and  among  the  Maidu 
of  the  Sacramento  Valley  the  trance  is  sudden  while  hunting.54 
It  may  among  the  Tlingit  be  against  the  individual’s  will.55 
The  Wintun  may  not  refuse  however  inconvenient.56  Among 
the  Bella  Coola  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  the  art  of  shamanism 
by  fasting  and  prayer;  it  is  a  free  gift  from  the  deity.  A  person 
who  is  to  be  a  shaman  will  fall  sick,  and  during  his  illness  Snx 
will  give  him  a  song  which  must  be  kept  a  deep  secret.  After 
this  he  is  able  to  cure  diseases.57  Among  the  Squalli,  of  Puget 
Sound,  predisposition  is  the  entire  requirement.58  On  the 
Pit  River  of  northern  California,  “nobody  makes  you  a  doctor, 
you  just  become  one.  The  spirits  choose  you.”59 

This  distinction,  while  not  absolute,  is  nevertheless  significant 
in  connection  with  certain  attitudes  which  have  been  assumed  to 
be  characteristic  of  the  guardian-spirit  relationship.  We  have 
seen  that  in  the  area  where  the  vision  is  considered  primarily 
an  inducible  experience,  the  means  employed  are  concentra¬ 
tion,  hunger,  thirst,  purgatives,  and  self-laceration.  This  self¬ 
laceration  may  be  carried  very  far  indeed  as  among  the  Mandan 
or  Dakota  or  Cheyenne  where  the  custom  was  to  cut  off  finger- 
joints,  or  to  insert  skewers  through  the  flesh  and  tie  these  to  a 
pole  from  which  the  suppliant  attempted  to  tear  himself  free. 
Or  the  fast  might  be  prolonged  beyond  our  ideas  of  endurance 
as  among  the  Central  Algonkian.  In  this  region  the  phrase 
which  described  a  supernatural  experience  was  regularly  “to 
be  pitied  by  the  spirits.”  The  phrase  had  travelled  beyond  the 


53  Jochelson:  The  Koryak,  pt  i,  p.  47. 

54  Dixon:  The  Maidu,  p.  267. 

55  Krause:  Die  Tlinkit-Indianer,  p.  284. 

56  Curtin:  Creation  Myths  of  North  America,  p.  516. 

57  Boas:  Third  Report  on  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  421. 
58Haeberlin:  MSS.  Puget  Sound. 

59  De  Angulo:  MSS.  Pit  River  Indians. 


28 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


region  of  self-laceration,  as  for  instance  among  the  Omaha,  and 
was  not  present,  for  instance,  among  the  Crow  who,  as  we  have 
seen,  employed  the  torture.  Nevertheless  I  think  we  may  see 
here  a  characteristic  of  this  combined  vision-guardian-spirit 
concept  which  could  be  proved  in  a  number  of  other  particulars: 
that  the  means  of  inducing  the  experience — the  vision — has,  in 
the  area  where  this  concept  of  painful  inducement  is  dominant, 
then  been  secondarily  attached  to  the  attitude  of  the  guardian 
spirit.  It  is  certainly  noteworthy  that  whatever  traces  we 
find  in  North  America  of  reverence  toward  the  spirit  protectors 
are  in  those  areas  where  the  concept  of  the  vision  itself  requires 
a  certain  psychological  attitude  which  may  then  with  great 
ease  be  transferred  to  the  guardian  spirit.60 

I  have  spoken  of  the  social  recognition  of  the  vision  as  the 
fundamental  and  typical  religious  fact  of  North  America.  This 
is  true  in  two  senses:  (I)  It  is  a  more  inclusive  concept  than 
the  guardian  spirit  in  areas  where  they  are  both  found;  and 
(II)  it  is  found  in  areas  and  tribes  where  the  guardian  spirit 
has  been  reinterpreted  out  of  existence  in  our  common  under¬ 
standing  of  the  term. 

I.  It  is  almost  universally  true  that  the  vision  is  sought  on 
other  occasions  than  in  procuring  a  guardian  spirit.  The 
occasions  differ,  of  course.  In  California,  where  guardian 
spirits  are  conceived  as  the  shaman’s  means  of  healing  disease, 
the  medicine  man  will  seek  a  vision  for  every  cure,  sometimes  a 
communication  from  his  tutelary,  sometimes  such  an  experience 
as  journeying  to  the  lower  world  to  find  the  sick  man’s  soul. 
Among  the  Labrador  Montagnais  and  Mistassini  where  the 
guardian  spirit  is  conceived  partly  as  a  hunting  talisman,  the 
particularly  lucky  hunter  will  “get  a  vision”  every  night  of  the 
whereabouts  of  game.61  The  Winnebago  “fast  for  every  war 
path,”62  with  observances  similar  to  those  of  the  puberty  fast. 

60  See  for  the  opposite,  formalistic  attitude  among  the  Nootka:  Sapir,  Van¬ 
couver  Island  Indians,  in  Hastings’s  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 

61  Speck:  Game  Totems,  pp.  16,  17. 

62  Radin:  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago  Indian,  p.  465. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


29 


Among  the  Haida,  “cleanness” — rigid  abstinence  from  food  and 
drink  and  women,  bathing  in  the  sea,  taking  sweat-baths  and 
emetics,  “keeping  run  of  the  days,”  i.e.,  allowing  stated  inter¬ 
vals  of  observance — was  employed  for  strength,  property, 
tribal  expeditions,  and  success  generally,  and  might  be  followed 
by  a  vision.63 

It  is  on  the  Plains,  however,  that  this  tendency  is  carried 
furthest,  so  that  all  guardian-spirit  phenomena,  however  large 
they  bulk,  are  only  a  single  particular  manifestation  of  the 
much  more  pervading  practice  of  the  vision.  It  is  true  of  all 
tribes  of  the  Great  Plains  that  the  vision  is  sought  on  continu¬ 
ally  recurring  occasions — for  mourning,  for  war-paths,  for 
revenge,  for  curing  disease,  or  in  consequence  of  a  vow  during 
illness,  for  a  name  for  a  child,  for  a  design,  for  entrance  into  a 
society;  and  on  all  these  occasions  the  seeker  ordinarily  re¬ 
ceives  his  power  or  commands  directly  without  specifically 
acquiring  a  guardian  spirit. 

The  vision,  in  fact,  in  common  interpretation  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  continent,  was  regularly  in  itself  that  which  gave 
control  of  supernatural  power.  Though  guardian  spirits  were 
an  enormously  common  intermediate  step,  the  logic  of  Indian 
thought  did  not  require  them.  “He  was  a  great  dreamer  and 
used  to  kill  people  with  his  power.”64  That  is  the  essential 
connection  between  power — and  it  may  be  interpreted  as  power 
to  kill,  or  strength,  or  wealth — and  the  vision  as  such.  “I  was 
going  to  be  poor,”  the  unsuccessful  Crow  explains  his  poverty, 
“that  is  why  I  had  no  vision.”65 

Even  when  the  reference  is  undoubtedly  to  the  obtaining  of 
a  guardian  spirit,  the  native  idiom  expresses  rather  the  tribal 
practices  that  led  to  the  vision,  and  passes  immediately  without 
the  intermediate  step  of  the  guardian  spirit  to  the  subsequent 
power.  The  Tsimshian  uncle  urged  his  nephews:  “  T  want 


63  Swanton:  Haida,  p.  40. 

64Lowie:  Assiniboine  Traditions,  p.  155. 
65  Lowie:  Crow  Religion,  p.  323. 


30 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


you  to  be  stronger  than  anyone  else;  therefore  build  a  large 
fire.  Go  down  to  the  water  and  bathe  in  the  sea.  (It  was  winter.) 
Then  I  shall  come  down  and  whip  you  with  a  bundle  of  twigs.’ 
.  .  .  The  three  brothers  went  fasting  all  the  time,  and  they 
became  stronger  than  all  the  other  people.”66  Among  the  Fox 
the  child  was  counseled,  “Blacken  your  face,  my  child;  life  is 
hard.  That  is  why  I  say  to  you,  ‘Blacken  your  face’  ”  (i.e., 
fast).67  The  Winnebago  taught  the  youths,  “You  ought  to  be 
of  some  help  to  your  fellow  men,  and  for  that  reason  I  counsel 
you  to  fast.  Without  any  trouble  you  will  be  able  to  obtain 
the  prize  you  desire.”68  This  attenuated  functional  signifi¬ 
cance  of  the  guardian  spirit  in  native  thought  makes  even  more 
striking  the  immense  area  in  which  the  concept  was  neverthe¬ 
less  retained  in  clean-cut  fashion. 

II.  There  are,  however,  not  a  few  cases  where  the  guardian 
spirit  has  been  reinterpreted  until  it  has  no  meaning  in  our 
common  understanding  of  the  term,  and  yet  the  vision  ex¬ 
periences  and  the  logic  of  the  connection  between  them  and 
“power”  have  been  retained. 

The  vision  formula  of  the  Pawnee,  for  instance,  makes  a 
guardian-spirit  description  unintelligible,  and  yet  leaves  un¬ 
touched  the  ordinary  objective  procedure,  and  the  familiar 
sanctions  obtained  in  the  experience.  Their  shamans,  for 
instance — as  distinct  from  their  priests — are  initiated  always 
in  four  or  five  definitely  localized  “animal  lodges”  where  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  all  the  animals  show  them  feats  of  legerdemain, 
and  give  them  power.  In  other  words,  such  a  scene  is  the 
required  form  of  vision  for  shamanistic  initiation.  But  no  one 
animal  is  selected  as  the  individual’s  special  tutelary.69 

The  Dakota  shaman’s  vision  is  a  stereotyped  affair  involving 
four  sets  of  actors  and  the  metamorphosis  of  two  of  them — 

66  Boas:  Tsimshian  Mythology,  p.  116. 

67  Michelson:  Sacred  Owl  Bundle,  p.  35. 

68  Radin:  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago  Indian,  p.  450. 

69  Dorsey:  Skidi  Pawnee,  p.  xix;  Wissler  MSS;  Dorsey:  Pawnee,  pp.  52, 
241,  261,  279,  etc. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


31 


one  into  animals,  the  other  into  plants.  The  essential  ingre¬ 
dient  of  his  “medicine”  is  the  pulverized  powder  of  the  plant 
into  which  on  a  backward  look  he  saw  the  persons  giving  him 
the  medicine  transformed.70  It  is  however  not  the  plant  nor 
the  elaborately  garbed  human  beings  of  the  vision  who  are 
his  guardian  spirits,  but  the  animal  which  runs  off  when  the 
instructor  disappears.  Here,  while  the  guardian  spirit  is 
still  retained,  it  is  a  purely  arbitrary  proceeding,  and  without  a 
knowledge  of  widespread  customs  would  be  unintelligible. 

In  a  different  fashion  a  somewhat  similar  result  had  been 
brought  about  among  the  Central  Algonkian.  The  Menomini 
and  Ojibwa,  for  instance,  laid  as  great  stress  upon  the  vision 
as  any  peoples  of  North  America,  but  they  aspired  to  such 
inclusive  blessings  that  an  individual  guardian  spirit  was  not 
evident.  The  Winnebago  counseled  their  young  men  thus: 
“Not  with  the  blessing  of  one  spirit,  not  with  the  blessing  of 
twenty  spirits,  can  you  go  on  the  war-path.  You  shall  be 
blessed  by  all  the  spirits  there  are  on  the  earth,  those  that  are 
pinned  through  the  earth  (the  Earth-weights),  and  those 
underneath  the  earth;  by  all  these,  and  by  all  those  in  the 
waters,  and  all  those  on  the  sides  of  the  earth,  (that  is,  the 
winds)  all  four  of  these;  and  by  Disease-Giver,  the  sun;  by 
the  moon,  the  day,  the  earth,”  et  cetera.71  An  Ojibwa  text 
reads:72  “Concerning  all  sorts  of  things  did  I  dream — about 
what  was  everywhere  on  earth  did  I  dream;  about  the  sea,  the 
suns,  and  the  stars,  and  about  all  things  in  the  circle  of  the 
heavens  from  which  blow  the  winds  did  I  dream.  And  about 
the  manitou  that  was  above,  did  I  dream;  by  him  was  I  spoken 
to,  by  him  was  I  given  the  knowledge  of  what  would  happen  to 
me.  By  all  the  people  of  the  stars  was  I  blest.  It  was  then 
that  I  constantly  dreamed  of  every  sort  of  observance  and  of 
song;  of  the  songs  that  are  on  high  did  I  hear.  By  a  great 
throng  of  sky  people  was  I  blest,”  et  cetera. 


70  Wissler:  Oglala  Societies,  p.  81. 

71  Radin:  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago  Indian,  p.  452. 

72  Jones:  Ojibwa  Texts,  vol.  2,  p.  295. 


32  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOC  I A  TION  [memoirs,  29 

A  comparable  reinterpretation  of  the  guardian  spirit,  but 
along  different  lines,  is  found  recurring  in  very  far  distant 
areas.  In  California  the  Mohave  have  no  place  at  all  in  their 
tribal  pattern  for  guardian  spirits  in  the  ordinary  use  of  the 
term.  What  is  revealed  to  them  in  their  visions  is  a  personal 
experience  in  mythic  times  before  the  creation  of  the  world. 
The  dreamer  believes  himself  to  have  been  present  in  spirit 
form  at  the  original  ceremonies  or  cures  performed  by  Mas- 
tamho  himself,  and  receives  his  power  from  this  fact.  The 
songs  used  in  healing  describe  this  instruction  by  Mastamho. 
All  the  myths  and  even  the  more  historical  legends  of  the  tribe 
are  supposed  to  be  known  to  those  who  tell  them,  not  because 
they  have  heard  or  learned  them,  but  because  they  have  seen 
the  events  themselves  in  their  dreams.73 

Besides  these  few  tribal  patterns  where,  in  the  light  of  their 
more  orthodox  neighbors  and  their  own  objective  practices, 
we  may  read  with  a  fair  degree  of  certainty  the  process  by 
which  the  guardian-spirit  formula  has  been  lost,  there  are 
two  other  areas  of  wider  extent  where  today  the  belief  in  the 
tutelary  spirit  is  not  found — the  Iroquois,  and  the  Southwest. 

When  Morgan  wrote  the  “League  of  the  Iroquois”  in  1851, 
nothing  in  his  careful  knowledge  of  the  tribe  led  him  to  mention 
any  form  of  guardian-spirit  belief.  And  after  careful  ethno¬ 
graphical  work  among  the  tribe  today,  “evidence  as  to  the 
acquisition  of  guardian  spirits  is  at  present  unsatisfactory.”74 
By  unique  accident,  however,  documentary  evidence  enables 
us  to  reconstruct  the  very  period  during  which  the  guardian- 
spirit  belief  was  reinterpreted  out  of  existence.  The  Jesuit 
fathers,  writing  in  1642,  could  not  be  more  explicit  concerning 
the  acquisition  of  tutelaries.  “A  certain  man  had,  when  but 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  age,  retired  to  the  woods  to  prepare 
himself  by  fasting  for  the  appearance  of  some  Demon.  After 


73  Kroeber:  Mohave,  p.  280. 

74  Goldenweiser:  Iroquois  Work,  p.  470. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


33 


having  fasted  sixteen  days  without  eating  anything,  and  drink¬ 
ing  water  only,  he  suddenly  heard  this  utterance,  that  came 
from  the  Sky:  ‘Take  care  of  this  man  and  let  him  end  his  fast.’ 
At  the  same  time  he  saw  an  aged  man  of  rare  beauty  who  came 
down  from  the  Sky,  approached  him,  and  looking  kindly  at 
him  said:  ‘Have  courage.  I  will  take  care  of  thy  life.  It  is  a 
fortunate  thing  for  thee  to  have  taken  me  for  thy  Master. 
None  of  the  Demons  who  haunt  these  countries  shall  have  any 
power  to  harm  thee.’  ”  His  guardian  promised  him  long  life 
and  offspring.75 

But  even  in  the  time  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers,  the  Iroquois 
had  their  own  Leitmotiv ,  which  differed  from  that  of  other 
peoples — the  dream  which  it  was  obligatory  to  fulfil  in  real  life. 
One  of  their  chief  divinities,  Taronhiawagon,  the  first  friend 
of  the  Iroquois,  had  a  chief  function  as  sender  of  dreams.76 
The  Jesuit  Fathers  listed,  as  obstacles  to  Indian  conversion, 
“Drunkenness,  dreams  and  impurity.”  And,  after  they  had 
described  the  other  two,  they  continued,  “The  dream  is  an  evil 
even  more  dangerous.  It  is  the  divinity  of  the  savage.  All  that 
they  dream  must  be  carried  out.”  And  the  length  to  which 
this  principle  was  carried  is  vividly  portrayed  in  the  “Rela¬ 
tions.”  At  the  one  great  regularly  recurring  tribal  ceremony, 
the  Festival  of  Dreams,  pandemonium  prevailed.  “Some  go 
armed  with  swords,  bayonets,  knives,  hatchets  or  cudgels, 
and  pretend  to  strike  with  these  every  one  they  meet;  others 
carry  firebrands,  coals  and  ashes  and  scatter  them  about  with¬ 
out  caring  on  whom  they  fall;  and  all  this  continues  until  their 
dream  is  guessed  and  fulfilled.  They  will  not  leave  the  spot 
until  their  thought  is  divined  and  if  one  delays  too  long,  or 
if  one  does  not  wish  to  divine  it,  or  if  one  cannot,  they  threaten 
to  burn  up  everything;  which  comes  to  pass  only  too  often. 
It  would  be  a  cruelty  and  a  sort  of  murder  not  to  give  a  man 
what  his  dream  called  for,  for  the  refusal  might  cause  his  death. 


75  Jesuit  Relations,  xxm,  p.  156,  et  seq. 

76  Hale:  Book  of  Rites,  p.  74. 


34 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


Therefore  they  may  see  themselves  stripped  of  their  all  without 
any  hope  of  recompense.”1 ' 

Dreams  had  also  medicinal  value  and  were  used  to  effect  a 
cure.  “It  frequently  occurs,  however,  that  a  hot  fever,  by 
causing  grotesque  and  senseless  dreams,  gives  the  poor  medicine 
man  much  trouble.”78 

The  whole  complex  of  isolation,  fasting,  and  prayer  was 
employed  in  connection  with  these  duly-to-be-fulfilled  dreams 
as  well  as  in  connection  with  guardian  spirits,  and  by  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  Morgan  wrote,  its  usage  in 
connection  with  dreams  had  obliterated  that  in  connection  with 
guardian  spirits.  The  fulfilment  of  dreams  played  still  its 
same  old  role.  The  celebrated  chief;  Cornplanter,  resigned  his 
chieftainship  in  consequence  of  a  dream.  During  a  New  Year’s 
Festival  of  Dreams  he  went  from  house  to  house  for  three  days, 
nearly  naked  in  the  cold  as  was  the  custom,  seeking  for  some 
one  to  guess  his  dream.  At  last  a  Seneca  interpreted  it  as  the 
abandonment  of  his  chieftainship,  and  Cornplanter  immediately 
put  it  into  execution.  His  presents  which,  as  chief,  he  had 
received  from  Washington,  Adams,  and  Jefferson,  he  collected 
and  burned;  his  wampum  belt  and  tomahawk  he  sent  to  his 
successor.79 

The  “new  religion”  of  Handsome  Lake,  which  swept  the 
Iroquois  from  the  time  of  his  revelation  in  1800,  had  no  doubt 
its  influence  in  the  abandonment  of  guardian  spirits  as  a 
practice  among  the  Iroquois,  but  Handsome  Lake  preached 
neither  fasting  nor  tutelaries  nor  fulfilment  of  dreams;  fasting 
and  the  puberty  isolation  have  lasted  down  to  the  present  day, 
however;80  and  Cornplanter ’s  fulfilment  of  his  dream  occurred 
ten  years  after  the  excitement  of  Handsome  Lake’s  ministry 
had  begun.  “Guessing  the  dream”  was  in  Morgan’s  time  a 


77  Jesuit  Relations,  xlii,  p.  154,  et  seq. 

78  Ibid,  xlvii,  p.  181. 

79  Morgan:  League  of  the  Iroquois,  vol.  i,  p.  205  and  note  1. 

80  Goldenweiser:  Iroquois  Work,  p.  470. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


35 


main  part  of  the  tribal  festival  days.  It  is  the  guardian  spirit 
concept  alone  that  did  not  survive.  The  situation  as  we  find 
it  now  among  the  Iroquois,  may  then  be  set  down  not  primarily 
to  the  preaching  of  the  great  prophet,  but  to  the  local  shift  of 
emphasis,  begun  already  before  the  Jesuit  period,  from  tute- 
laries  to  the  fulfilment  of  dreams  in  waking  life. 

The  Southwest  is  the  one  great  area  of  North  America 
where  guardian  spirits  have  no  dominant  role  in  ceremonial 
or  individual  life;  nor  can  we  reconstruct  a  past  history  of  them 
by  documentary  evidence.  We  are  the  better  able,  however, 
to  infer  the  direction  of  the  Southwest  development  from  the 
less  absolute  cases  which  we  have  passed  in  review. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Southwest  is  not  geographically  an 
outpost  beyond  the  reach  of  the  guardian-spirit  concept.  It  is 
known  in  its  most  orthodox  form  among  the  Indians  of  Central 
America  where  it  was  described  as  early  as  1530. 

The  Devil  deluded  them,  appearing  in  the  shape  of  a  lion,  or  a  tiger, 
or  a  coyote,  a  beast  like  a  wolf,  or  in  the  shape  of  an  alligator,  a  snake,  or 
a  bird,  which  they  called  naguales,  signifying  keepers  or  guardians,  and 
when  the  bird  died,  the  Indian  who  was  in  league  with  him  died  also, 
which  often  happened  and  was  looked  upon  as  infallible.  The  manner  of 
contracting  this  alliance  was  thus:  the  Indian  repaired  to  the  river,  wood, 
hill,  or  most  obscure  place,  where  he  called  upon  the  devils  by  such  names 
as  he  thought  fit,  talked  to  the  rivers,  rocks  or  woods,  said  he  went  to 
weep  that  he  might  have  the  same  his  predecessors  had,  carrying  a  cock 
or  dog  to  sacrifice.  In  that  melancholy  fit  he  fell  asleep,  and  either  in  a 
dream  or  waking,  saw  some  one  of  the  aforesaid  birds  or  other  creatures, 
whom  he  entreated  to  grant  him  profit  in  salt,  cacao,  or  any  other  com¬ 
modity,  drawing  blood  from  his  own  tongue,  eafs,  and  other  parts  of  his 
body,  making  his  contract  at  the  same  time  with  the  said  creature,  the 
which,  either  in  a  dream  or  waking,  told  him,  “Such  a  day,  you  shall  go 
abroad  a-sporting,  and  I  will  be  the  first  bird  or  other  animal  you  shall 
meet,  and  will  be  your  nagual  and  companion  at  all  times.”  Whereupon 
such  friendship  was  contracted  between  them,  that  when  one  of  them  died, 
the  other  did  not  survive,  and  they  fancied  that  he  who  had  no  nagual 
could  not  be  rich.81 

This  very  familiar  usage  was  modified  among  the  Mexican 
Chiapanecs,  according  to  Bishop  Nunez  de  le  Vega,  who  wrote 


81  De  Herrera:  General  History,  vol.  4,  p.  138  et  seq. 


36  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIA TION  [memoirs,  29 

toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  by  their  dependence 
upon  the  zodiac.  The  nagual  of  each  child  was  cast  by  means 
of  his  horoscope  at  birth.  “These  writings  are  known  as 
Repertories,  or  Calendars,  and  they  are  also  used  to  discover 
articles  lost  or  stolen,  and  to  effect  cures  of  diseases.”82  Among 
the  Aztecs  these  tutelaries,  assigned  according  to  the  horo¬ 
scope,  were  known  as  “tonalli.”83 

The  Pueblo  area  is,  then,  surrounded  on  the  south  as  well 
as  the  north  by  recognizable  guardian-spirit  concepts.  But 
the  contrast  which  the  Southwest  forms  to  other  regions  in  this 
respect  is  sufficiently  striking.  Here  tutelaries  and  the  acquisi¬ 
tion  of  tutelaries  play  by  no  means  the  dominant  role  in 
religious  practices  that  is  so  marked  elsewhere.  These  peoples 
have  a  ceremonialism  probably  more  elaborate  and  important 
in  tribal  life  than  that  in  any  other  area  of  North  America, 
but  it  is  dominated  by  the  idea  of  the  necessity  of  group- 
ceremonial  approach  to  the  gods,  not  of  that  of  individual  ex¬ 
perience. 

Nevertheless  it  seems  sometimes  as  if  every  element  of  the 
familiar  guardian-spirit  complex  is  present  in  the  Southwest 
except  the  standardization  of  the  guardian  spirit  itself.  These 
elements  include  especially:  (1)  the  attitude  toward  dreams; 
(2)  the  practices  which  in  other  areas  are  used  for  vision  induce¬ 
ment  and  are  here  practised  for  ceremonial  cleanness;  (3)  in¬ 
voluntary  vision  or  peculiar  psychic  experience,  with  intimacy 
with  some  animal  or  man-being,  and  the  power  resulting  from 
it;  and  finally  (4)  sought  visions. 

(1)  Dreams  are  regarded  as  setting  up  serious  responsibilities 
of  a  ceremonial  sort.  In  Zuni,  a  man  dreamed  not  long  ago 
that  he  had  offered  to  entertain  certain  masked  impersonations 
of  supernatural  beings.  He  did  not  carry  out  his  dream  pur¬ 
pose,  and  he  was  consequently  hurt  in  a  wagon  accident.84 


82  Quoted  by  Brinton,  Nagualism,  p.  24,  et  seq. 

83  Ibid,  p.  19,  et  seq. 

54  Parsons:  Notes  on  Zuni,  pt.  ii,  p.  283. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


37 


Dreams  are  also  recognized  as  entailing  initiation  into  the 
various  curing  societies.  This  was  true,  for  instance,  at  Sia,85 
and  in  Zuni  a  man  still  lives  who  was  initiated  into  his  society 
because  his  dog  spoke  to  him  while  out  sheep-herding.86 

(2)  Another  familiar  element  of  the  widespread  vision- 
guardian-spirit  complex  which  is  found  also  in  the  Southwest 
is  concerned  with  the  means  employed  for  the  inducement  of 
visions;  though  here,  according  to  the  Southwest  pattern,  no 
vision  is  expected  to  follow,  and  the  purification  is  itself 
efficacious.  Ceremonial  cleanness  is  everywhere  in  the  South¬ 
west  a  very  conspicuous  concept,  and  is  attained  by  fasting 
and  isolation;  continence;  the  emetic  (so  prominent  also  in  the 
Southeast) ;  and  the  ceremonial  head-washing  with  yucca 
suds.  The  Navaho  and  Apache  use  also  the  sweat-house,  and 
induce  vomiting.  This  cleanness  is  prerequisite  to  all  cere¬ 
monies.  At  the  head  of  the  ceremonial  organization  of  the 
Zuni  and  the  Sia  and  elsewhere  is  a  group  of  “high  priests” 
devoted  to  lives  of  fasting  and  prayer.  At  Sia,  on  important 
occasions,  the  head-priest  abstains  entirely  from  food  for  four 
days  and  receives  directions  from  the  gods,  for  whom  he  acts  as 
a  mouthpiece.87  At  Cochiti,  the  cacique  at  the  head  of  the 
ceremonial  organization  has  to  pray  and  fast  for  the  whole 
world,  even  for  the  whites.88 

(3)  Practically  every  collection  of  Pueblo  traditions  which 
we  possess  has  myths  dealing  in  quite  orthodox  Indian  fashion 
with  extraordinary  psychic  experience,  and  the  power  and 
blessing  derived  from  it.  Cushing  in  “Zuni  Breadstuffs”89  has 
recorded  a  Zuni  myth  of  the  orphan  bungler  who  was  adopted 
by  the  coyote  when  out  hunting.  All  the  usual  elements  of  the 
story  are  present:  the  introduction  of  the  boy  in  Coyote’s 
house;  his  instructions  as  to  ceremonialism,  hunting,  etc.; 

85  Stevenson:  Sia,  p.  74. 

86  Parsons:  MSS. 

87  Goddard:  Handbook,  p.  101. 

88Dumarest:  Notes  on  Cochiti,  p.  197. 

89  Pp.  401-515. 


38 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


Coyote’s  appearance  as  a  man  during  the  interview;  the  offer¬ 
ings  which  the  boy  makes  in  return;  the  great  success  which 
comes  to  him  through  the  experience  and  the  instructions,  and 
the  life-long  blessing  and  protection  which  is  granted  him. 

A  variant  of  the  deserted-children  story  describes  a  similar 
experience  of  the  boy  hunter,  first  with  Rabbit,  and  later 
with  Wolf.  This  last  protector  so  fills  the  houses  with  corn 
that  the  doors  will  no  longer  open.90  An  Isleta  tale  describes 
the  adoption  of  the  hero  by  Deer,91  and  the  story  has  been 
recorded  also  from  the  Tewa  of  the  First  Mesa.92 

Similar  experiences  occur  also  outside  of  traditions,  within 
recent  times.  In  Cochiti  a  man  of  the  last  generation  was  sick 
for  a  whole  year,  and  was  taken  through  the  land  of  the  dead, 
which  he  described  on  “awaking”  in  great  detail.93  Among 
the  Pima  a  shaman  decided  upon  his  profession  because  he 
dreamed  every  night  that  he  was  visited  by  someone  who  en¬ 
dowed  him  with  magic  power.  When  he  began  to  practise, 
after  a  novitiate  of  three  or  four  years,  his  success  depended 
upon  the  strength  of  his  dreams  and  visions.  His  highly- 
prized  transparent  crystals  which  he  kept  in  a  “nest”  in  his 
body,  came  to  him  by  means  of  a  set  vision.  When  out  alone, 
he  saw  a  man  approaching  who  always  vanished  before  reaching 
him.  The  prospective  shaman  searched  the  place  of  his 
disappearance  and  found  one  of  these  crystals.94 

(4)  The  records  of  sought  visions  are,  however,  the  most 
striking  proof  of  elements  in  this  religious  complex  which  are 
common  to  the  Southwest,  and  to  the  rest  of  the  continent.  In 
mythology  there  is  one  quite  remarkable  passage  from  the 
Pima.95 

I  was  lying  in  ashes  and  praying  the  distant  mountains  for  strength, 
and  the  far  doctors  for  power.  .  .  And  I  asked  the  Butcher  Bird  for 

90  Parsons:  Notes  on  Zuni,  n,  p.  316,  sq. 

91  Lummis:  Pueblo  Indian  Folk-stories,  pp.  12-14. 

92  Parsons:  MSS. 

93  Boas:  MSS. 

94  Russell:  Pima,  pp.  257-259. 

95  Lloyd:  Mythology  of  the  Pima,  p.  202,  sq. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


39 


power,  and  he  followed  his  Road  of  Light  and  touched  the  ground  four 
times  with  his  tail  and  came  to  me.  And  my  enemy  thought  himself  a 
good  dreamer,  and  that  his  dreams  were  fulfilled  for  good,  and  that  he  had 
a  good  bow  with  a  good  string,  and  good  cane  arrows,  but  the  Butcher 
Bird  had  already  punched  his  eyes  out  without  his  knowing  it. 

A  Laguna  text  describes  the  visit  of  a  group  of  boys  to  the 
haunt  of  a  certain  sort  of  spirits.  They  slept  on  the  top  of  the 
mesa.  Before  dawn  the  spirits  came.  “All  different  kinds 
went  there.  Some  carried  ice  in  their  hands,  and  others  carried 
cactus  flowers,  and  others  carried  yucca  in  baskets,  and  also 
they  exercised  much  magic  power.  Before  them  we  sacrificed 
pollen  and  we  asked  for  everything  to  the  end:  plants  (success 
in  agriculture),  and  for  growth,  and  old  age,  and  for  plant 
seeds.”  As  it  became  daylight  most  of  the  spirits  disappeared, 
but  the  rest  came  to  the  west  toward  the  boys,  and  put  seeds 
of  different  kinds  into  their  hands.  “Thus  I  saw  them  nearby. 
Some  looked  as  though  they  had  clouds  on  their  heads;  others 
looked  like  birds,  and  they  spoke.  Thus  I  saw  the  k‘o.'- 
pi.ct‘ay'a.”96 

It  is  from  Cochi ti  that  we  have  abundance  of  evidence  of  the 
sought  vision  in  the  Southwest  as  an  element  of  contemporary 
religious  practice.97  “Men  would  go  out  and  fast  for  four  days 
and  four  nights.  They  prayed  and  sang.  If  they  fasted 
properly  they  would  see  a  bear,  or  a  mountain  lion,  coyote, 
wolf  or  eagle,  who  would  come  to  them  and  say,  T  will  help 
you  hunt  and  catch  deer.’  ”  A  bear  or  lion  would  appear  to 
the  would-be  hunter;  a  person  to  the  gambler;  and  to  the 
shaman,  a  wolf  or  eagle.  One  hunter  met  a  bear  in  a  deep 
canyon;  he  talked  to  him,  promised  him  friendship,  and  specific 
help  in  hunting  deer.  The  man  knew  all  the  time  that  the  bear 
was  really  a  (supernatural)  person  only  wearing  a  bearskin. 

There  are  also  in  Cochiti  persons  who  obtained  power  by 
visiting  certain  places  at  midnight  with  offerings.  The  sup¬ 
pliant  hears  terrific  noises,  and  perhaps  he  feels  that  he  is 


96  Boas:  MSS,  Laguna  Texts. 

97  Boas:  MSS,  Cochiti. 


40  AMERICA  N  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOC  I A  TJON  [memoirs,  29 

being  pulled  backward  by  unseen  spirits.  But,  if  he  does  not 
look  back,  and  goes  out  slowly,  he  will  be  a  brave  warrior  and  a 
successful  hunter. 

Women,  too,  before  making  baskets,  had  to  fast  for  four  days 
and  take  emetics.  After  that  a  woman  would  appear  to  them 
who  helped  them  in  making  baskets.98 

There  are  present  then  in  the  Southwest  most  of  the  elements 
that  we  have  seen  to  be  associated  with  the  vision-guardian- 
spirit  complex  over  the  rest  of  the  continent.  It  is  the  guardian 
spirit  itself  that  is  lacking  as  an  institutionalized  element  of 
religion.  Under  the  influence  of  the  concept  of  group-cere¬ 
monial  as  the  proper  way  of  approaching  the  gods,  who  here 
took  more  and  more  definite  form,  individual  experience  as  a 
means  to  this  end  became  less  and  less  important,  though  we 
are  not  without  evidence  that  it  is  present  still. 

There  is  then  no  guarantee  of  permanency  in  the  oldest  and 
most  intimately  linked  of  cultural  complexes.99  Among  the 
Iroquois  the  vision-guardian-spirit  concept  has  acquired  a 
new  direction  on  the  one  side,  and  in  the  Southwest  has 
dwindled  in  contrast  with  another  dominant  concept.  In 
both,  interest  has  been  withdrawn  from  the  old  orthodox  trait 
of  the  acquiring  of  a  tutelary,  and  this  new  focus  of  interest 
has  become  the  center  of  new  actions  and  new  beliefs.  It  is 
the  process  by  which  all  cultural  concepts  are  ceaselessly  and 
indefinitely  changing. 

The  vision  and  not  the  guardian  spirit,  then,  is  the  unifying 
religious  fact  of  North  America,  and  their  association  is  a  fact 
of  enormously  wide  distribution  and  very  varying  tribal  inter¬ 
pretations.  Their  interpenetration  is  called  for  neither  by  the 
character  of  the  experience  nor  by  that  of  the  guardian  spirit, 
but  is  an  historical  juxtaposition  which  has  crossed  the  conti¬ 
nent  along  with  the  ceremonial  head-scratcher  and  the  sweat- 
house. 


98  Boas:  MSS,  Cochiti. 

99  See  below:  p.  62. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


41 


Formalization.  It  is  obvious  from  the  facts  we  have  noticed 
that  the  vision  is  generally  regarded  as  an  experience  of  the 
individual  in  isolation  from  his  fellows.  This  is  almost  uni¬ 
versally  true,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  either  the  means 
of  inducing  the  vision  or  the  revealed  contents  of  it  are  born 
out  of  individual  consciousness.  Nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  truth.  Just  as  the  “revealed”  contents  of  super¬ 
normal  experiences  everywhere  are  cast  in  definite  cultural 
patterns,  so  preeminently  among  the  Indians.  The  dream 
that  the  Dakota  required  for  their  shamans  is  sufficiently 
striking  as  a  type  of  these  set  patterns  (see  p.  30,  above). 
The  same  tribe  had  also  a  conventionalized  vision  which  was 
required  for  berdaches,  who  were  regarded  as  sacred  and  not 
exactly  normal.100  There  are  also  societies  of  great  importance 
which  are  entered  through  a  vision  of  fixed  type — an  extremely 
widespread  phenomenon  which  is  well  developed  also  among 
the  Iroquois.101 

The  Tlingit  required  for  their  shamans  a  vision  of  a  fish-otter 
sticking  out  his  tongue  to  be  cut  off  for  the  benefit  of  the  candi¬ 
date;102  and,  though  there  were  other  possible  preliminaries  to 
shamanistic  initiation,  this  particular  vision  was  of  constant 
recurrence.  The  Penobscot,  as  we  saw,  strokes  the  head  of  a 
serpent  to  bind  it  to  him  as  a  servant.  The  Shasta  sees  an 
Axeki,  a  little  man  with  bow  and  arrow.  And  so  on  indefinitely. 
It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  in  any  tribe  a  dream  would  be 
necessarily  rejected  because  it  did  not  conform  to  a  rigid  pat¬ 
terning,  if  other  circumstances  were  favorable.  It  is  neverthe¬ 
less  true  that  suggestion  as  to  the  type  of  dream  valued  in  that 
community  is  everywhere  present,  and  so  moulds  the  recorded 
dreams  that  there  would  be  little  difficulty  in  placing  any  vision- 
text  from  any  part  of  North  America  within  at  most  a  group 
of  three  or  four  neighboring  tribes.  Even  the  most  individual¬ 
istic  of  the  visions  blurs  but  slightly  the  tribal  outline. 

100  Wissler:  Societies  of  the  Oglala,  p.  92. 

101  Hewitt:  in  Handbook  of  American  Indians. 

102  Krause:  Die  Tlinkit-Indianer,  p.  285. 


42 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


This  formalization  of  content  is  paralleled  by  the  formaliza¬ 
tion  of  the  means  of  obtaining  the  vision.  For  the  Blackfoot 
the  desideratum  was  intense  concentration;  “keep  thinking 
it  intensely  all  the  time”  was  the  formula  of  success.103  On 
Puget  Sound,  on  the  contrary,  the  best  condition  of  obtaining 
it  is  to  go  out  on  the  mountains  in  winter,  and  after  certain 
rites,  “lie  down  and  sleep  soundly.”104  “Cleanness”  was  the 
great  requirement  on  the  Northwest  Coast,  which  took  the 
form  of  rubbing  with  spruce  needles  or  plunging  into  icy 
streams;  on  the  Eastern  Plains  the  tearing  out  of  thongs  in¬ 
serted  in  the  flesh;  in  the  Southeast,  purgatives  and  scarifica¬ 
tion  with  sharp-toothed  combs;  “blackening  the  face,”  west 
and  south  of  the  Great  Lakes.  Each  of  these,  and  many  more 
localized  ones,  has  each  a  definite  geographical  distribution. 
Any  one  of  them  may  become  the  foremost  consideration  in 
the  native  mind.  Among  the  Winnebago,  for  instance,  the 
crucial  point  is  blackening  the  face  with  charcoal:  “they  would 
conceivably  have  tolerated  variations  in  the  attitude  of  mind 
required,  but  would  never  have  permitted  the  omission  of 
blackening  the  face.  According  to  a  well-known  prophecy 
among  them,  the  world  will  come  to  an  end  when  the  Winne¬ 
bago  fast  with  ‘white/  i.e.,  unblackened  faces.”105 

These  institutionalized  means  of  vision-inducement  were 
always  more  inclusive  than  their  use  in  connection  with  the 
vision  itself.  Usually  the  local  practices  of  this  sort  were  also 
those  which  were  used  to  produce  ceremonial  cleanness  in 
general.  Thus  we  find  that  the  fastings,  or  the  divings  into 
frozen  streams,  or  the  like,  are  efficacious  in  themselves  also, 
without  any  question  of  whether  or  not  a  vision  occurs.  Among 
the  Kwakiutl,  a  child,  in  their  mythological  stories,  by  staying 
in  the  ice-cold  spring  the  whole  day  for  long  periods,  becomes  so 
strong  that  he  can  twist  yew  trees  without  difficulty.106  A 

103  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Bundles,  p.  253. 

104  Haeberlin :  MSS. 

105  Radin:  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago  Indian,  p.  451,  note  214. 

106  Boas:  Kwakiutl  Texts,  p.  140. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA  43 

boy  of  the  Upper  Chinook  must  chop  a  hole  in  the  ice  and  dive 
five  times  “in  order  to  be  strong;  or,  just  so,  in  order  to  prepare 
one  for  a  guardian  spirit.  And  indeed,  ever  since  I  was  a  child, 
I  have  never  been  sick;  I  have  always  been  strong.  But  not  at 
all  have  I  seen  anything  that  they  call  a  guardian  spirit.  I 
do  not  know  what  it  is  like.”107  In  this  case  an  identical  exploit 
was  required  of  any  boy  who  fell  asleep  during  the  telling  of  a 
myth  in  winter. 

The  vision-complex,  then,  formalized  into  definite  tribal 
patterns  as  to  content  and  means  of  inducement,  is  enormously 
the  largest  and  most  basic  concept  of  Indian  religion.  In 
several  widely  scattered  areas,  by  very  different  processes,  the 
guardian-spirit  formulation  of  the  vision  experience  has  been 
reinterpreted  out  of  existence  in  any  ordinary  sense.  Even 
where  the  guardian-spirit  formulation  is  fundamental,  the 
vision  is  sought  also  on  many  occasions  of  life  without  a 
guardian-spirit  intermediary.  This  fact — that  we  have  here 
as  the  universally  socially  recognized  fact,  not  a  dogma  nor 
secondary  explanation,  but  an  experience  in  which  validity 
was  recognized  by  the  presence  of  the  “religious  thrill”  itself — 
makes  this  area  particularly  suggestive.  In  so  clear-cut  a  case, 
does  not  this  basis  itself  necessitate  some  psychological  unity 
in  the  observed  phenomena?  Has  not  the  religious  experience 
itself  its  corollary  in  belief  and  practice? 

III.  Behavior  of  the  Guardian  Spirit  Concept  in 
Relation  to  Other  Cultural  Traits 

1.  Kinds  of  Spirits.  In  the  first  place,  then,  is  it  not 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  certain  unity  of  type  should  be 
found  in  the  tutelary  spirits  themselves?  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Wundt  has  proposed  this  very  aspect  of  the  guardian-spirit 
complex  as  its  common  basis.  He  argues  that  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  concept  of  the  guardian  spirit  there  comes  into 
existence  that  veneration  of  spiritual  beings  which,  having 


107  Sapir:  Wishram  Texts,  p.  189. 


44 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


previously  in  the  stage  of  demoniacal  beliefs  been  non-existent, 
now  prepares  the  way  for  a  worship  of  the  gods.108  Guardian- 
spirit  beliefs,  to  him,  are  a  stage  in  an  evolutionary  series  of  the 
type  of  spirit  worshipped.  The  question  at  issue,  therefore, 
is  whether  we  do  actually  find  any  such  demarcation  of  the 
kinds  of  guardian  spirits  recognized;  a  limited  sort,  that  is, 
that  may  be  classified  as  tutelary,  and  set  off  against  evil 
demons  on  the  one  hand,  and  gods  on  the  other. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  however,  there  is  a  wide  range. 
The  guardian  spirits  of  the  Kwakiutl,  for  instance,  are  not  to 
be  distinguished  from  “gods”;  they  have  their  personal  names, 
their  legendary  characteristics,  their  life  histories;  they  con¬ 
stitute  a  loose  tribal  pantheon,  and  each  one  has  in  his  gift  his 
own  particular  symbol  of  superhuman  magic.  These  god- 
personalities  are  characteristic  for  the  whole  Northwest, 
though  the  pantheons  have  always  tribal  individuality. 

At  the  other  extreme  we  find  tutelaries  which  are  indeed 
guardian  spirits  possessed  in  the  same  manner  as  any  others, 
yet  assuming  all  the  characteristics  of  Wundt’s  “demons  of  a 
lower  animism.”  The  Takelma  of  southern  Oregon  possessed 
guardian  spirits  of  this  sort  as  one  of  their  most  pronounced 
religious  notions.109  The  tutelaries  of  the  goyo,  the  most  power¬ 
ful  class  of  shamans,  were  all  of  this  character.  No  novice  was 
free  to  choose  his  vision,  and  whatever  spirit  presented  itself 
must  be  accepted.  Possession  of  these  goyo  spirits  meant,  if  it 
were  the  Sun,  the  death  of  all  the  shaman’s  children;  it  meant 
in  every  case  the  distrust  and  fear  of  the  entire  community. 
Those  possessing  these  spirits  were  liable  to  death  without 
retaliation  or  payment  of  blood  fee.  That  is,  possessors  of  this 
type  of  guardian  spirit  were  looked  upon  exactly  as  are  the 
practitioners  of  black  arts  among  Wundt’s  demon  worshippers. 

Among  the  Central  Algonkian,  certain  of  the  regular  mytho¬ 
logical  beings  who  appear  as  guardian  spirits  are  similar  tokens 


i°8  Wundt,  Volkerpsychologie,  vol.  iv,  Mythus  und  Religion,  pt.  i,  p.  555. 
109  Sapir:  Religious  Ideas  of  the  Takelma  Indians,  p.  41  sq. 


Benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


45 


of  black  magic.  A  Menomini  youth  “fasted  and  prayed  for  a 
prophetic  dream.  In  spite  of  all  his  endeavors  to  obtain  the 
aid  of  the  good  manitous,  Misikinubick,  the  black  horned, 
hairy  snake  persistently  appeared  to  him,  offering  him  the 
powers  of  sorcery,  until,  at  last,  the  lad  was  obliged  to  accept 
his  tender.”  He  was  required  to  wait  until  he  was  forty  to 
make  use  of  his  powers  and  to  pay  for  it  at  that  time  by  the 
sacrifice  of  two  daughters,  whom  he  drowned.  From  that 
time  on,  he  was  able  to  cripple,  ruin,  or  kill  his  enemies  by  the 
help  of  his  tutelary.110 

Similar  practices  are  known  for  the  Winnebago,  Sauk,  Fox, 
and  Potawatomi;* 111  and  they  are  probably  very  close  to  those 
of  the  Iroquois  and  their  allied  tribes.112 

Throughout  the  whole  Wabanaki  area,  the  literal  transla¬ 
tion  in  all  dialects  of  the  native  word  for  guardian  spirit  is 
“that  by  which  magic  is  performed.”113  Aside  from  tricks — 
which  also  partook  of  the  “black  magic”  character — his  occupa¬ 
tions  were  “to  kill  or  injure  by  pointing  the  finger,  to  prove  his 
strength  over  rivals,  either  in  combat  or  contest,  to  spy  on 
enemies,  to  spoil  the  luck  of  trappers  and  hunters,”  and  so  on.114 

It  is  quite  usual,  therefore,  to  find  the  guardian  spirit  as  a 
typical  demon  of  black  magic;  and  at  the  other  extreme,  on  the 
Northwest  Coast,  tutelaries  are  well-nigh  indistinguishable 
from  gods. 

Wundt  would,  of  course,  consider  it  possible  to  reconcile 
these  facts  with  his  position,  since  he  could  suppose  that  in  the 
one  case  a  previous  attitude  has  survived  into  a  new  stage, 
and  in  the  other  a  future  attitude  is  foreshadowed  before  the 
old  stage  is  abandoned.  Such  a  reconciliation  is,  however,  too 
hypothetical  to  be  admitted.  It  rests  on  the  evolutionist’s 
claim  of  parallel  and  uniform  development  for  all  cultures, 

110  Skinner:  Menomini  Associations  and  Ceremonials,  p.  185. 

111  Ibid,  page  171. 

112  Morgan:  League  of  the  Iroquois,  i,  p.  156. 

113  Speck:  Game  Totems,  p.  15. 

114  Speck:  Penobscot  Shamanism,  p.  256. 


46 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


and  can  be  sustained  only  by  an  investigation  of  concrete 
historic  processes.  Until  it  is  so  sustained  it  cannot  be  used  in 
theoretic  interpretations.  We  may  therefore  take  these  facts 
at  their  face  value,  and  see  no  more  and  no  less  correlation  of 
the  guardian-spirit  idea  with  the  demons  of  black  magic  than 
with  the  gods  or  with  animal  spirits. 

Aside  from  Wundt’s  untenable  suggestion,  however,  may  we 
not  discover  some  other  aspect  of  the  tutelary  beings  them¬ 
selves  that  we  may  regard  as  fundamental?  Dr.  Radin  has 
found  this  unity  in  their  development  out  of  the  genii  loci. 
“Very  little  was  necessary  to  accomplish  the  transformation 
of  the  genii  loci  into  the  guardian  spirit.  The  idea  of  guardian 
and  protector  of  the  precinct  as  such  had  but  to  be  extended  so 
as  to  include  all  those  who  lived  in  that  precinct,  both  in¬ 
dividually  and  collectively.”115  On  the  contrary,  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  one  of  the  most  striking  facts  in  this  connection 
is  the  distinction  which  the  Indian  maintained  between  his 
two  great  animistic  preoccupations,  the  guardian  spirit  and 
the  genii  loci.  Where  amalgamation  took  place,  as  Dr.  Radin 
has  recorded  that  it  did  among  the  Central  Algonkian,  it 
seems  to  have  been  under  the  strong  double  influence  of  a 
special  social  organization  with  considerable  permanence  in 
certain  localities,  and  definite  family  instruction  as  to  the 
contents  of  the  vision.  Such  conditions,  which  actually  exist 
among  the  Central  Algonkian,  might  bring  about  this  transfer 
from  a  genius  loci  to  a  guardian  spirit;  but  it  is  a  long  and 
circuitous  method.  Certainly  on  the  Plains  it  is  exceedingly 
unusual  for  a  tutelary  to  be  recorded  as  having  any  place  of 
residence,  and  even  then  the  local-divinity  idea  is  not  added. 
In  the  Southeast,  guardian  spirits  belonged  to  animate  beings; 
it  was  foreign  to  native  thought  to  conceive  of  them  as  presiding 
over  places.  On  the  Plateau  they  were  grouped  on  very  sub¬ 
ordinate  terms  with  canoes,  triggers,  the  moon,  thunder, 
garments,  fish  nets,  and  animals;  the  pattern  here  recognized 


116  Radin:  Religion  of  the  North  American  Indians,  p.  294. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


47 


no  limits  to  possible  guardian  spirits,  and  hence  occasionally 
accepted  a  local  being.  On  the  Pacific  Coast  we  find  the  most 
luxuriant  development  of  local  spirits,  but  the  Kwakiutl  tute- 
laries  resemble  anything  rather  than  genii  loci,  and  where,  as 
among  the  Haida,  Ocean  People  and  Forest  People  may  be 
guardian  spirits,  they  are  on  equal  terms  with  Property  Woman, 
the  Two  Singers,  and  the  Canoe  People.116  The  only  center 
where  guardian  spirits  and  genii  loci  were  assimilated  the  one 
to  the  other,  was  in  northwestern  California  and  among  the 
neighboring  Maidu  and  Shasta.  It  is  a  particular  local  develop¬ 
ment,  emphasizing  by  its  exception  the  rule  which  in  other 
areas  kept  the  two  kinds  of  spirits  distinct.  With  the  Maidu, 
animals  are  also  seen  in  the  vision,  but  mountains,  rocks,  and 
lakes  are  more  usual.117  The  old  shaman  who  prepares  the 
novice  prays,  and  names  all  places  in  the  whole  region  where 
spirits  are  known  to  him.  Among  the  Yana,  the  shaman  calls 
on  rocks,  logs,  and  trees  for  his  power.  “I  am  the  .  .  .  medi¬ 
cine-man,”  a  text  reads,  “I  go  to  every  spring  and  am 
answered.”118  The  guardian  spirit  in  the  Shasta  vision  always 
tells  where  he  lives;  every  rock,  lake,  or  mountain  has  such  a 
resident.  But  besides  this  local-spirit  characterization,  the 
guardian  has  also  a  folkloristic  one,  being  a  little  man  with  bow 
and  arrows  who  gives  a  sharpened  crystal  “pain,”119  and,  in 
other  tribes  of  the  area,  the  “pain”  itself  became  the  guardian 
spirit.120 

Another  cycle  of  animistic  ideas,  which  was  only  locally 
and  incompletely  taken  up  into  the  guardian-spirit  practices, 
is  that  concerned  with  ghosts  and  ancestral  peoples.  In 
North  America  the  idea  that  one  may  seek  tutelaries  among 
the  dead  is  very  nearly  absent.  It  is  localized  on  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  as  far  inland  as  the  Thompson  River.  The  dead 

116  Swanton:  The  Haida,  pp.  38  and  29  sq. 

117  Dixon:  Northern  Maidu,  p.  277. 

118  Sapir:  Yana  Texts,  pp.  179,  180. 

119  Dixon:  Shasta,  p.  473. 

120  Kroeber:  California  Culture  Provinces,  p.  161. 


48 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


even  here  are  never  the  source  of  the  majority  of  guardian 
spirits,  but  shamans,  especially,  may  have  such.  That  is,  they 
are  regarded  as  unusual  and  awful  tutelaries.  The  Tlingit 
shaman  may  spend  days  and  nights  in  a  grave  seeking  to 
obtain  the  spirit  of  the  buried  man  as  his  tutelary.121  The 
Lillooet  shaman  may  also  seek  a  ghost  as  guardian,122  and  the 
Thompson  may  place  the  skull  of  a  powerful  shaman  before 
his  sweat-house  door,  calling  upon  the  deceased  to  become  his 
spirit.123 

The  concept  of  the  dead  as  playing  an  active  part  in  the 
lives  of  the  living  takes  also  other  forms  in  this  area;  the  idea  of 
rebirth,  for  instance,  is  present  among  the  Tlingit,124  and  among 
the  Kwakiutl125  and  their  neighbors.  Among  the  Thompson126 
and  Lillooet127  it  becomes  weakened  to  the  notion  of  the  rebirth 
from  the  same  mother  of  children  dying  in  infancy.  The  con¬ 
nection,  however,  between  the  dead  as  guardian  spirits  and  as 
playing  other  roles  in  human  life  is  not  a  constant  one;  in 
central  California  where  the  concern  with  the  dead,  in  mourning 
ceremonies,  in  defilement  taboos,  and  in  emotional  attitudes  is 
dominant,  there  are,  so  far  as  we  know,  no  guardian  spirits 
among  the  dead.  Their  relative  prominence  on  the  North¬ 
west  Coast  is,  therefore,  a  local  development,  not  necessarily 
conditioned  by  the  cultural  setting. 

Animals  were  the  most  commonly  obtained  tutelaries,  but 
the  interpretation,  even  in  this  case,  differed  widely.  A  very 
widespread  Indian  theory,  accentuated  especially  among  the 
Central  Algonkian,  held  that  the  guardian  was  never  one  of 
the  animals  of  daily  life,  but  an  ancestral  prototype  of  his 
species.128  This  theory  had  important  practical  consequences; 

121  Krause:  Die  Tlinkit-Indianer,  p.  285. 

122  Teit:  Lillooet,  p.  287. 

123Teit:  Thompson,  p.  354. 

123  Swanton:  Tlingit,  p.  463. 

125  Boas:  Fifth  Report  on  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  611. 

126  Teit:  Thompson,  p.  359. 

127  Teit:  Lillooet,  p.  287. 

128  Radin:  Religion  among  the  North  American  Indians,  p.  283. 


benedict  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


49 


it  nullified  neighboring  taboos  against  eating  the  flesh  of  one’s 
guardian  spirit.  The  reverence,  in  the  Central  Algonkian  idea, 
was  due  to  the  prototype,  not  to  the  animals  in  the  flesh.  As 
we  shall  see  later  also,  the  interpretation  of  animal  guardians 
varied  as  it  was  influenced  in  various  ways  in  different  totemic 
cycles  of  ideas. 

The  tutelary  beings  of  North  America,  therefore,  range  from 
those  of  demoniacal  sort  to  those  indistinguishable  from  gods. 
They  are,  over  most  of  North  America,  kept  distinct  from 
local  spirits  and  from  the  dead,  but  in  each  case  relatively 
strong  connections  are  locally  developed.  Among  all  the 
Wabanaki  tribes,  as  we  have  seen,  they  are  disguises  to  be 
assumed  in  working  magic;  and  in  many  cases,  it  goes  almost 
without  saying,  they  may  be  also  fetishes  pure  and  simple.  A 
strong  development  in  this  direction  has  taken  place  especially 
among  the  Nootka  of  Vancouver  Island,  where  the  supernatural 
being  bestows  power  not  so  much  by  way  of  a  dream  as  by  the 
amuletic  virtue  of  his  own  body.129  It  is  impossible,  therefore, 
to  group  the  guardian  spirits  of  North  America  under  any  one 
type,  or  to  see  any  one  concept  behind  them. 

2.  Puberty  Ordeal.  Another  sort  of  unity  in  the  vision- 
guardian-spirit  complex  has  been  proposed,  most  explicitly 
by  Hutton  Webster.  In  his  discussion  of  Primitive  Secret 
Societies  he  states  that  the  vision  has  thus  become  among  the 
American  Indians  “the  regular  puberty  ordeal.”130  There  is  a 
great  deal  that  points  to  this  identification.  A  large  number 
of  the  earlier  objective  descriptions  offered  no  other  clue;  and 
there  are  besides  considerable  areas  where  the  two  are  con¬ 
spicuously  identified.  It  is  helpful  here  to  use  Van  Gennep’s 
distinction  between  physical  and  social  puberty,131  thus  greatly 
increasing  the  range  of  years  in  which  puberty  ceremonials 
may  occur.  In  this  way  we  may  be  able  to  include  the  Plateau, 


129  Sapir:  Vancouver  Island  Indians,  p.  594. 

130  P.  153. 

131  Van  Gennep,  Rites  de  Passage,  p.  94. 


50 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


the  eastern  seaboard  in  general,  and  the  Central  Algonkian 
where  fasting  was  supposed  to  begin  at  ten132  and  is  recorded  for 
five  years  of  age.133 

It  is  also  possible  to  regard  the  rites  as  primarily  puberty 
ceremonials  in  those  areas  where  they  are  undertaken  only  by 
shamans,  if  they  are  inaugurated  at  the  time  of  adolescence; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  explain  them  in  these  cases  only  by  the 
puberty-ordeal  idea.  The  two  ideas  are  sometimes  held  clearly 
apart  in  the  same  tribe — the  vision  cycle  leading  to  superna¬ 
tural  power,  and  the  puberty  cycle  qualifying  for  membership 
in  the  tribe  or  for  general  success  in  life.  Among  the  Takelma, 
for  instance,  the  two  were  entirely  distinct  as  far  as  the  women 
of  the  tribe  were  concerned.  Both  sexes  had  the  vision  experi¬ 
ence  and  were  therefore  shamans;  but  the  menstrual  dance 
was  held  also  regularly  for  all  girls  of  the  tribe  at  adolescence. 

In  all  California,  indeed,  the  two  concepts  are  remarkably 
distinct.  The  vision  is  so  regularly  an  exclusive  prerogative 
of  the  medicine  man  that  here  Dr.  Kroeber  can  even  define 
shamanism  as  “the  supposed  individual  control  of  the  super¬ 
natural  through  a  personally  acquired  power  of  communication 
with  the  spiritual  world”134 — a  definition  which  is  exactly 
descriptive  of  the  vision  experiences  of  other  areas.  Yet  this  is 
precisely  the  region  where  adolescent  ceremonials  for  boys  and 
girls  are  most  prominently  developed.  The  modern  toloache 
cult  of  the  Mission  Indians  has  brought  the  vision  experience 
into  the  boys’  puberty  ceremonial  but  not  into  the  girls’.135 

If  the  explanation  of  the  vision  experience  as  a  puberty  rite 
is  insufficient  in  regions  where  the  vision  is  expected  only  of 
the  shaman,  it  is  quite  out  of  place  in  regions  where  mature 
men  seek  the  vision.  This  is  clearly  the  habit  of  the  Crow, 
but  more  than  that,  it  is  the  pattern  for  the  Plains  in  general,136 

132  Radin:  Ojibwa  Religion,  p.  7. 

133  Jones:  Ojibwa  Texts,  n,  p.  303. 

134  Kroeber:  Religion  of  California  Indians,  p.  327. 

135  Waterman:  Diegeno,  Indians,  p.  296;  Du  Bois:  Luiseno,  p.  177. 

136  Benedict:  Vision  in  Plains  Culture,  p.  2. 


/ 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


51 


except  for  their  eastern  fringe  where  Algonkian  influence  is 
strong.  It  is  interesting  that  the  same  disassociation  of  vision 
and  puberty  occurs  again  on  Puget  Sound  where  it  is  the  custom 
to  obtain  the  vision  after  marriage.137 

There  are  other  disturbing  factors  even  in  areas  where  the 
apparent  connection  is  close.  Among  the  Kwakiutl  there  were 
the  following  considerations:  the  right  to  the  dance  given  by 
the  guardian  spirit  must  have  been  acquired  by  marriage  or  by 
killing  the  owner;  money  must  be  in  readiness  “to  pay  for  his 
ecstasy”;  and  the  elders  must  have  given  their  approval  to  such 
acquisition.  The  death  of  a  relative  was  also  necessary  in 
certain  cases.  Under  such  circumstances  Schurtz  is  hardly 
justified  in  his  identification  of  the  Northwest  Secret  Societies 
with  the  youths’  initiations  of  other  regions,  “die  eben  nichts 
weiter  sind  als  umgestaltete  und  umgedeutete  Brauche  dieser 
Art.”138 

3.  Degree  of  Socialization.  No  aspect  of  religious  traits  has 
been  recognized  as  having  so  great  a  bearing  upon  their  inter¬ 
pretation  as  this  of  the  degree  of  socialization  that  underlies 
them.  Durkheim,  especially,  has  argued  that  the  excitement 
of  large  tribal  undertakings  is  the  basis  of  the  religious  dichot¬ 
omy  into  sacred  and  profane.139  At  their  face  value  the  facts 
of  the  Indian  vision-guardian-spirit  complex  are  obviously 
hard  to  reconcile  with  such  a  position.  No  one  characteristic 
is  more  stable  for  the  whole  continent  than  the  removal  for 
this  experience  of  this  very  fact  of  crowd  excitement.  The 
trait  is  constant  in  all  the  tribes  whose  guardian-spirit  experi¬ 
ences  we  have  passed  in  review.  We  know  that  the  Indians  did 
employ  the  crowd  situation  to  induce  psychic  manifestations, 
as  for  instance,  very  conspicuously  in  the  Ghost  Dance  prac¬ 
tices.140  In  the  vision  that  gave  knowledge  of  the  guardian 

137  Haeberlin:  MSS  on  Puget  Sound. 

138  Schurtz:  Altersklassen  und  Mannerbiinde,  p.  392. 

139  Durkheim:  Elementary  Forms  of  the  Religious  Life.  Durkheim  argues 
that  these  guardian  spirit  observances  as  we  know  them  now  are  a  late  develop¬ 
ment  which  are  based  on  an  original  totemism.  But  see  section  below,  p.  62. 

140  Mooney:  The  Ghost  Dance. 


52 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


spirit,  however,  there  seems  to  be  only  one  small  corner  of 
North  America  where  a  group  setting  was  admitted.  It  has 
been  recorded  for  two  tribes  of  central  California,  the  Wintun141 
and  the  neighboring  Wailaki.142  Among  the  Wintun  the  doctors 
and  chiefs  gave  out  word  that  on  a  certain  night  they  were 
about  to  create  doctors.  All  candidates  were  “sucked  pure,” 
and  put  through  the  sweat  bathing.  Then  all  gathered,  and  the 
sweat  house  was  closed,  and  the  lights  extinguished.  The 
spirits  came  with  a  whistling  noise  and  one  by  one  those  into 
whom  they  entered  fell  down  in  a  trance.  The  doctors  called 
“One  more!  One  more!”  Excitement  grew  more  intense.  Some 
who  had  been  possessed  tried  to  reach  the  house  roof;  some  tried 
to  climb  the  center  pole.  The  ceremony  continued  all  night; 
many  doctors  might  be  made,  or  few,  or  none.  There  were 
always  many  people  in  the  sweat  house  to  whom  spirits  would 
not  come. 

Among  the  neighboring  Wailaki,  as  many  as  twenty  take 
their  training  together  under  the  tutelage  of  two  supervising 
shamans.  They  dance  night  and  day  to  the  accompaniment  of 
songs — days  in  the  mountain,  nights  back  by  the  river.  At 
the  culminating  ritual  all  sit  in  a  circle,  arms  raised  and  bent 
forward,  “like  a  tipi,”  swaying  and  singing.  The  old  shamans 
rock  them.  As  the  spirit  enters  them,  one  after  another  they 
fall  forward  and  are  passed  over  to  their  wives  or  mothers  to 
be  tended.  The  test  of  success  is  blood  in  the  mouth.  Only 
five  or  six  of  the  twenty  are  recognized  as  successful,  and  there¬ 
by  become  shamans. 

Apparent  similarities  in  other  areas  turn  out  to  be  of  another 
order.  Thus  the  Tsimshian,  and  the  Kwakiutl  as  well,  give 
guardians  to  the  chiefs’  sons  and  daughters  in  all  night  “throw¬ 
ing  dances”  at  the  potlatches,143  but  here  the  custom  is  an 
indication  not  of  the  use  of  a  crowd  situation  to  heighten  an 


141  Curtin:  Creation  Myths  of  North  America,  p.  512. 

142  Goddard:  MSS. 

143  Boas:  Tsimshian  Society,  p.  515. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


53 


emotional  state  which  would  lead  to  vision  experiences;  rather 
here  the  vision  cycle  has  become  so  weak  that  there  is  sub¬ 
stituted  the  widespread  potlatch  custom,  which  in  other  more 
usual  cases  involved  the  gift  of  blankets  rather  than  of  tute- 
laries. 

The  Penobscot  were  accustomed  to  join  together  at  irregular 
intervals  in  a  “dark  lodge”  to  conjure,  and  to  find  out  whether 
any  present  were  to  become  shamans.144  But  they  met  to 
perform  tricks;  that  is,  legerdemain  was  a  function  of  a  shaman, 
and  any  one  excelling  in  it  was  presumably  therefore  destined 
to  be  a  medicine  man.  The  assembly  had  nothing  to  do  with 
bringing  about  a  mental  state. 

The  point  is  made  even  more  striking  when  this  accepted 
pattern — that  the  guardian  spirits  revealed  themselves  in 
isolation — maintained  itself  even  when  the  revelations  were 
conceived  as  integral  parts  of  great  tribal  ceremonies.  Thus, 
on  the  Plains,  visions  were  the  more  or  less  regular  climax  of  the 
Sun  Dance,  but  among  the  Dakota145  or  the  Blackfoot146  the 
participator  went  out  alone  on  the  prairie  after  the  ceremony 
was  over  and  the  vision  was  granted  in  isolation,  even  five  or 
six  months  later. 

If  it  is  distinctly  irregular  to  obtain  the  guardian  spirit  in 
group  ceremonial,  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  very  common  to  find 
some  manner  of  group  rites  built  upon  or  around  it.  The 
common  basis  of  all  such  group  elaboration  was  the  constant 
tendency  of  the  guardian-spirit  concept  to  enter  into  some  sort 
of  combination  with  some  social  grouping.  This  tendency 
existed  even  where  no  group  rites  had  developed.  We  have 
seen  how  with  the  Thompson  the  professional  grouping  was 
stressed;  with  the  Penobscot  it  entered  into  relation  with  their 
family  groups,  with  their  distinctive  hunting  territories.  In 
California  especially,  and  also  in  other  areas,  it  was,  as  it  were^ 
synonymous  with  the  shamanistic  calling. 

144  Speck:  Penobscot  Shamanism,  p.  245. 

145  Walker:  Sun  Dance  of  the  Ogiala,  p.  120. 

146  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Sun  Dance,  p.  263. 


54 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


The  guardian-spirit  experience  likewise  gave  rise  to  social 
groupings  entirely  its  own,  which  might  develop  any  known 
degree  of  elaboration,  and  be,  in  turn,  influenced  in  almost  any 
known  way  by  the  kinship  organization  of  the  tribe.  The 
simplest  grouping  according  to  guardian  spirits  occurs  re¬ 
peatedly,  as  in  the  animal-in-the-body  dances  of  the  Crow.147 
The  guardian  spirit  was  often  conceived  on  the  Plains  as 
inhabiting  the  body  of  its  possessor,  and,  in  this  dance,  all 
those  individuals  who  had  bears,  eagles,  horses,  and  the  like 
in  their  bodies  would  come  together  and  display  the  super¬ 
natural  presence  within  them  in  such  a  way  that  the  animal 
was  made  to  protrude  part  of  its  body  through  the  performer’s 
mouth. 

Similar  occasions  where  dances  are  organized  around  the 
guardian-spirit  experience  without  forming  any  permanent 
organized  grouping  are  common  also  on  the  Plateau,148  and  on 
the  Atlantic  coast.  The  great  tribal  ceremony  of  the  Lenape,149 
who  originally  inhabited  the  coast  between  Connecticut  and 
Maryland,  was  based  on  guardian  spirits  in  this  way.  After 
the  solemn  opening  of  the  ceremonial,  the  assembled  tribe 
“passed  the  Turtle”  from  hand  to  hand,  and  when  he  received 
it,  each  man  who  had  had  a  vision,  might  rise  and  dance, 
singing  his  guardian  spirit’s  song  or  a  description  of  his  experi¬ 
ence.  This  is  taken  up  by  the  chorus,  and  the  whole  night  is 
spent  in  recital.  The  twelfth  and  last  night  of  the  ceremony  is 
reserved  for  women’s  visions. 

Among  the  Dakota150  and  the  Omaha151  a  permanent  grouping 
had  taken  the  place  of  this  loose  but  recurring  dance  demon¬ 
stration.  The  societies  had  developed  leaders,  paraphernalia, 
traditions,  and  esoteric  interpretations. 


147  Lowie:  Societies  of  the  Crow,  p.  150. 

148  Spinden:  Nez  Perce,  p.  249. 

149  Harrington :  Lenape  Religion,  p.  92  sq. 
i6o  wissler:  Oglala  Societies,  p.  81  sq. 

151  J.  O.  Dorsey:  Siouan  Sociology,  p.  346  sq. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


55 


We  have  already  seen  how  the  Kwakiutl  knit  the  guardian- 
spirit  concept  both  to  the  clan  organization  and  to  their  secret 
societies.  These  secret  societies,  which  during  the  winter 
formed  the  basis  of  social  organization  for  the  tribe,  had 
exactly  the  same  unifying  principle  as  the  Dakota  and  Omaha 
cults — they  were  groups  of  those  to  whom  the  same  super¬ 
natural  patron  had  appeared.  And  although  here  the  freedom 
of  this  “appearance”  was  strictly  limited  by  rules  of  inheritance, 
and  a  fabulous  elaboration  of  ritual  and  organization  had  taken 
place,  the  root  idea  is  still  familiar.  The  vision  basis  is,  how¬ 
ever,  far  more  of  a  conventionalized  formula,  a  social  fiction, 
and  this  tendency  may  be  carried  to  its  logical  conclusion  in 
the  initiation  of  an  infant  in  arms  into  its  hereditary  society.152 
Among  the  neighboring  Tsimshian,  the  father  may  have  the 
new-born  child  initiated  by  proxy  at  birth  into  a  proper  secret 
society,  that  it  may  be  from  infancy  a  member  of  the  aris¬ 
tocracy,  i.e.,  the  initiated.153  Here  the  social  organization  is 
everything;  the  guardian-spirit  theory  upon  which  it  is  based, 
a  mere  survival. 

This  organization  of  those  having  a  common  supernatural 
patron  into  secret  societies  more  or  less  permanent  and  stand¬ 
ardized  in  the  tribe,  by  no  means  exhausts  the  possibility  of 
connections  between  the  social  grouping  and  the  guardian- 
spirit  concept.  It  passes  readily  into  social  groups  through 
the  mechanism  of  inheritance.  In  one  of  its  weaker  forms  we 
have  noted  it  among  the  Shasta;  in  its  strongest,  among  the 
Kwakiutl;  but  it  has  a  very  much  wider  distribution.  The 
commonest  basic  idea  seems  to  be  that  one  attains  a  guardian 
that  has  already  appeared  in  the  family  more  readily  than  any 
other,  but  that  one  did  not  therefore  know  how  to  make  any 
very  extended  use  of  it,  if  at  all,  without  an  individual  revela¬ 
tion.  Thus  among  the  Ojibwa,  who  are  organized  in  totemic 
clans,  “the  blessing  of  the  clan  animal  is  more  easily  attained 

162  Boas:  Kwakiutl,  pp.  548-9. 

153  Boas:  Fifth  Report  on  the  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  854. 


56 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


by  a  member  of  the  clan  than  by  an  outsider,”154  and  among  the 
Winnebago  the  clan  bundle  was  put  in  the  child’s  fasting  hut 
to  insure  a  vision  from  an  approved  family  tutelary.155 

The  clan  system  might  exist  side  by  side  with  the  utterly 
unlimited  choice  of  guardian  spirits,  as  for  example,  among  the 
Crow,156  the  Lillooet,157  or  the  Omaha.158  On  the  other  hand, 
a  clear  idea  of  descent  might  be  characteristic  of  the  guardian- 
spirit  rights  or  paraphernalia  and  yet  be  at  odds  with  the  tribal 
social  organization,  even  when  it  was  dominated  by  a  strong 
clan  pattern.  Among  the  Arikara  of  the  Plains,  descent  was 
maternal  in  a  characteristic  clan  setting;159  the  son,  however, 
received  his  father’s  medicine  bundle  and  if  there  were  no  son 
it  was  buried  with  the  father  in  his  grave.160  A  similar  disparity 
occurs  also  among  the  neighboring  Hidatsa,  only  here  the 
process  is  singularly  complicated:  the  son  “inherits”  the 
spirits,  but  he  must  purchase  them,  and  must  in  addition  have 
the  identical  vision.161  Four  logically  antithetical  patterns, 
then,  coexist  in  this  tribe:  paternal  descent  of  the  guardian 
spirit;  the  acquisition  by  vision;  purchase;  and  the  maternal 
clan.  Yet  the  guardian  spirit,  with  all  these  conceptually 
irreconcilable  mechanisms,  plays  here  as  dominant  a  part  in 
their  culture  as  anywhere  in  North  America. 

The  guardian-spirit  concept,  then,  exhibits  an  almost  constant 
tendency  to  externalize  or  perpetuate  itself  in  some  sort  of 
social  grouping.  The  connection  which  these  form  with  the 
tribal  social  organization,  however,  follows  no  fixed  rule.  It 
is  essentially  fortuitous,  and  the  result  of  specific  factors  in  the 
tribal  situation.  Just  as  it  is  associated  with  the  clan  pattern 
in  different  ways,  it  exhibits  an  equal  variation  in  its  relation 

154  Radin:  Social  Organization,  p.  24. 

155  Radin:  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago  Indian,  p.  388  sq. 

166Lowie:  Crow  Religion,  pp.  324-344. 

167  Teit:  Lillooet,  p.  283. 

158  Fletcher:  Omaha,  p.  128. 

159  Goddard  and  Reichard:  Field  notes. 

160  Maximilian:  Reise,  vol.  n,  p.  247. 

161  Lowie:  Hidatsa  Sun  Dance,  p.  416  sq. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


57 


with  loose  social  organization.  We  should  expect  in  such  cases 
an  absence  or  very  weak  development  of  the  concept  of  in¬ 
heritance,  and  this  is  widely  true — complete  absence  among  the 
Blackfoot  and  the  Arapaho,  for  instance,  and  weak  develop¬ 
ment  among  the  Thompson  and  Nez  Perce.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  among  the  Northeastern  Maidu  of  California,  with 
the  loosest  social  organization,  inheritance  in  guardian  spirits 
may  be  so  strong  that  all  children  of  a  shaman— who  alone 
have  guardian  spirits — must  follow  in  his  footsteps  on  pain  of 
death,  even  if  there  be  a  half  dozen.162 

4.  Totemism.  It  is,  however,  in  its  association  with 
totemism  that  theoretical  discussion  has  most  often  argued  a 
fixed  and  even  a  genetic  relationship  between  a  mode  of  sociali¬ 
zation  and  the  guardian  spirit.  Totemism  does,  indeed,  bring 
into  the  sib  organization  a  further  attitude  which,  as  Miss 
Fletcher  has  shown,  is  strikingly  paralleled  by  that  shown 
toward  the  guardian  spirit.163  As  she  points  out,  the  clan  totem 
represents  the  same  class  of  objects  as  the  guardian  spirits, 
and  forms  the  basis  in  the  clan  of  “a  sort  of  brotherhood” 
with  which  people  have  been  made  familiar  in  religious  societies 
based  on  like  guardian  spirits.  Since  they  were  then  so  similar 
and  “guardian  spirits  could  be  obtained  in  but  one  way — 
through  the  rite  of  the  vision — the  totem  of  the  gens  must 
have  come  into  existence  in  that  manner,  and  must  have 
represented  the  manifestation  of  an  ancestor’s  vision.”  This  is 
very  suggestive  as  a  discussion  of  Omaha  social  organization 
and  in  certain  ways  indicates  for  this  tribe  the  actual  develop¬ 
ment,  so  far  as  we  can  see  it;  as  in  a  very  different  setting  it  is 
true  also  for  the  Kwakiutl164  and  probably  for  neighboring 
tribes.  It  is,  however,  when  a  law  is  generalized  from  this 
as  to  the  development  of  totemism  from  guardian-spirit  beliefs 
as  a  universal  ethnological  phenomenon165  that  it  is  contradicted 

162  Dixon:  Northern  Maidu,  p.  274.  . 

163  Fletcher:  The  Import  of  the  Totem,  pp.  325-335. 

164  Boas:  Kwakiutl,  pp.  323,  336,  and  662. 

165  Hill-Tout:  Totemism. 


58 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


even  by  North  American  data.  No  factor  which  Miss  Fletcher 
mentions  in  her  argument  is  of  universal  distribution  in  North 
America,  except  the  vision,  and  that  is  not  an  element  suf¬ 
ficient  in  itself  to  produce  totemism  or  we  should  find  it  from 
end  to  end  of  the  continent,  whereas  it  is  actually  very  defi¬ 
nitely  localized.  Even  in  the  areas  where  it  is  developed, 
we  do  not  necessarily  find  Miss  Fletcher’s  other  two  factors: 

(1)  the  same  class  of  spirits  as  guardians,  and  as  totems,  and 

(2)  the  preliminary  organization  into  secret  societies  “which 
makes  familiar  the  sense  of  brotherhood.” 

(1)  It  is  noteworthy  that,  regarding  the  classes  of  spirits 
acquired  as  guardians,  Francis  La  Flesche,  the  Omaha  who 
collaborated  with  Miss  Fletcher  in  her  monograph  on  that 
Indian  tribe,  does  not  so  closely  identify  totem  and  guardian 
spirit  even  for  the  Omaha.  Only  the  lowest  form  of  power  was 
communicated  by  animals;  above  this  was  the  power  given  by  a 
cloud,  or  eagle-winged  human  being;  above  this  again,  that 
given  by  a  spirit  with  no  semblance,  of  which  the  voice  alone 
was  heard.166  Of  course  the  totems  were  exclusively  animals. 
Among  the  totemically  organized  Menomini  we  have  the 
specific  statement  that  animals  are  rare  as  guardian  spirits,167 
and  we  have  already  recorded  certain  texts  that  indicate  the 
non-totemic  nature  of  the  Ojibwa  and  Winnebago  tutelaries. 
Among  the  Wyandotte  the  distinction  is  absolute.  No  animal 
is  ever  sought  as  guardian  spirit  which  is  also  eponym  of  a 
social  group.  Religious  feeling  is  strongly  associated  with  the 
guardian-spirit  group,  and  is  hardly  discoverable  in  connection 
with  the  “totemic.”168 

Among  the  Haida  and  in  other  Northwest  tribes  there  was  a 
similar  tendency  to  differentiate  totemic  crests  and  guardian 
spirits,  the  latter  being  the  prerogative  of  shamans.  The 
Haida  crests  were  killer  whale,  blue  hawk,  sea  lion,  horned  owl, 


166  La  Flesche:  Omaha  Funeral  Customs,  p.  3. 

167  Skinner:  Menomini,  p.  45. 

168  Personal  communication  from  Mr.  Barbeau.  Wyandotte  MSS. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


59 


flicker,  etc.169  The  supernatural  beings  who  spoke  through 
shamans,  that  is,  the  guardian  spirits,  were  Canoe  People, 
Ocean  People,  Forest  People,  and  Above  People.170 

(2)  Secret  societies  are  so  widespread  in  North  America 
and  psychologically  so  congenial  in  a  totemic  organization, 
that  they  inevitably  seem  a  very  possible  step  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  an  intermittent  totemism.  They  are,  however,  not 
universal;  and  where  they  are  found  may  be  organized  in 
patterns  quite  independent  of  the  guardian  spirits;  or  stand 
in  further  ways  outside  the  series.  Among  the  Lillooet,  where 
we  have  prominent  guardian-spirit  practices  in  a  totemically 
organized  tribe,  there  is  no  secret  society  organization.171  We 
know  by  comparison  with  the  linguistically  related  Thompson 
that  totemism  is  here  a  recent  phenomenon;172  and  since  there 
are  no  secret  societies  it  was  not  learned  through  previous 
experience  in  these  organizations.  This  holds  also  for  the 
Shuswap.173 

The  Penobscot  were  organized  into  family  groups  distin¬ 
guished  by  animal  names,  and  a  Penobscot  referred  to  his 
animal  as  “my  partner  of  a  strange  race.”  Certain  physical 
peculiarities  were  attributed  to  the  mythical  relationship 
between  the  present  day  human  and  animal  families.174  But 
such  totemic  phenomena  did  not  grow  out  of  secret  societies, 
which  were  here  unknown  in  any  form. 

Even  when  societies  exist  in  a  totemic  community  with 
guardian-spirit  practices,  they  may  be  a  side  issue  unrelated  to 
either.  Among  the  Yuchi  the  societies  are  paternal  in  a 
maternal  organization.  They  take  today  a  more  prominent 
part  in  tribal  life  than  the  clan.  In  no  conceivable  sense  was 
it  a  step  from  the  individual  guardian  spirits  to  totems:  guardian 

169  Swanton:  The  Haida,  p.  108. 

170  Ibid,  p.  38. 

171  Teit:  Lillooet. 

172  Goldenweiser:  Social  Organization,  359. 

173  Teit:  Shuswap. 

174  Speck:  Algonkian  Family  Hunting  Bands,  p.  300. 


60 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


spirits  were  communicated  in  a  democratic  totemic  rite; 
societies  were  definitely  hostile  to  one  another,  with  distinct 
caste  ranking  and  inalienable  membership  through  the  father.175 
Among  the  Mandan,  who  had  maternal  clans  with  totemic 
names  so  far  as  they  are  translatable,  but  no  veneration  or  idea 
of  descent  from  the  animal,  societies  were  again  enormously 
important,  and  their  activities  were  elaborated  to  a  high  degree 
of  complexity.  Admission  to  one  after  another  of  the  series  was, 
however,  bought  by  an  entire  class  of  co-evals,  and  as  among 
the  Hidatsa,  there  was  little  or  no  religious  significance.176  On 
the  contrary,  their  guardian-spirit  practices  were  highly  charged 
with  religious  feeling.177  Here  again  the  societies  of  the  Village 
tribes  stand  as  an  outside  factor,  hard  to  place  in  any  genetic 
sequence  with  either  guardian  spirits  or  totemism. 

On  the  Northwest  Coast  there  is  an  interrelation  between 
guardian  spirits,  societies,  and  clan  totemism  almost  as  inti¬ 
mate  as  among  the  Omaha.  As  Prof.  Boas  has  pointed  out 
among  the  Kwakiutl,  “The  same  psychological  factor  which 
moulded  the  clans  into  their  present  shape  moulded  the  secret 
societies”178 — a  factor  compounded  of  the  guardian-spirit  idea 
and  of  the  notion  of  caste  privilege  observed  among  the  northern 
tribes.  But  he  finds  no  trace  of  an  evolving  series  from  manitou 
beliefs,  through  secret  societies,  and  finally  to  clan  totems; 
rather  the  explanation  must  be  looked  for  in  a  different  quarter, 
and  from  the  consideration  of  the  whole  data  he  suggests  that 
the  origin  of  the  secret  society  may  be  in  customs  relating  to 
warfare.179  Here  again,  then,  though  after  a  different  fashion, 
secret  societies  are,  as  so  often  in  other  areas,  an  issue,  in  the 
main,  aside  from  any  series  originating  in  manitou  beliefs  and 
culminating  in  totemic  phenomena. 


175  Speck:  Yuchi,  p.  75. 

176  Lowie:  Mandan  Social  Organization,  p.  9. 

177  Maximilian:  Reise,  vol.  n,  p.  187,  sq. 

178  Boas:  Kwakiutl,  p.  662. 

179  Ibid,  p.  164. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


61 


But  if  it  is  only  in  individual  instances  and  without  a  set 
mechanism  of  development  through  secret  societies  that  it 
seems  likely  that  totemism  has  developed  from  the  guardian- 
spirit  concept,  there  is  very  much  less  basis  for  the  opposite 
theory,  that  advanced  by  Durkheim  in  Les  Formes  elementaires 
de  la  Vie  religieuse.  Speaking  of  the  guardian-spirit  concept, 
which  he  calls  the  individual  totem,  “the  individual  aspect,” 
he  considers,  “represents  a  part,  or  a  particular  aspect,  of  the 
collective  totem.”  “It  is  within  the  frame  of  collective  totem¬ 
ism  that  it  lives  and  dies;  it  is  an  integral  part  of  it.”180 

On  the  contrary,  on  the  basis  of  data  already  quoted,  we 
know  that  the  guardian  spirit  flourishes  exceedingly  outside  a 
totemic  organization.  There  are  the  Eskimo,  from  Alaska  to 
Greenland;  the  greater  part  of  the  Wabanaki  and  Dene  tribes 
inhabiting  practically  all  Canada  east  of  the  Rockies;  the 
Indians  of  the  Great  Plains,  except  on  the  eastern  fringe; 
the  Plateau,  and  the  great  majority  of  the  tribes  of  the  United 
States  west  of  the  Rockies.  This  is  altogether  an  immense 
area,  more  than  half  of  the  continent  of  North  America.  As 
competent  observers  have  over  and  over  again  failed  to  discover 
totemism  or  even  survivals  of  any  sort  of  a  clan-gens  system  in 
this  generally  most  primitive  region  of  North  America;  and 
have  meanwhile  unanimously  testified  to  the  conspicuous  and 
many-sided  role  of  the  guardian  spirit — Durkheim’s  individual 
totem — we  may  regard  the  evidence  as  relatively  conclusive. 

Even  in  the  areas  where  a  totemic  organization  is  found, 
“the  individual  aspect,”  moreover,  takes  a  variety  of  con¬ 
tradictory  forms,  which  are  by  no  means  capable  of  passing  as 
“particular  aspects  of  the  collective  totem.”  They  are  far 
from  belonging  exclusively  to  the  same  class  of  phenomena  (see 
above,  p.  58);  they  need  not  follow  the  totemic  pattern  of 
descent  (see  above,  p.  56),  being  particularly  liable  to  be 
regarded  as  a  thing  of  predisposition;  or  they  may  belong  to  an 
entirely  different  category  as  to  the  veneration  accorded  them. 


iso  P>  179_ 


62 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


Thus  among  the  Missouri  village  tribes  of  the  Plains,  though 
we  have  in  some  cases  totemically  named  clans,  we  have  never  a 
trace  of  veneration.  The  Hidatsa  origin  story  of  the  Prairie 
Chicken  clan  relates  how  a  few  young  men  on  a  war  party 
stopped  over  night  among  some  bushes  such  as  prairie  chickens 
frequent.  Accordingly,  the  rest  of  the  people  called  them 
Prairie  Chickens.181  On  the  contrary,  the  fervor  of  the  pursuit 
of  guardian  spirits  and  the  veneration  accorded  the  bundle 
scheme  based  upon  them,  are  the  most  striking  religious  and 
ritualistic  facts  of  their  culture.182  On  no  one  of  these  counts 
then  can  we  identify  the  guardian  spirit  as  “a  particular  aspect 
of  the  collective  totem.” 

Durkheim  also  makes  a  claim  of  priority  for  totemism  over 
against  the  guardian-spirit  concept.  “Individual  totemism 
presupposes  the  totemism  of  the  clan.”  He  denies  that  the 
“individual  totem  is  really  a  primitive  fact  from  which  the 
collective  totem  was  derived.”183  In  this  Dr.  Haddon  concurs, 
for  the  reason  that  “the  conception  of  an  individual  spirit 
helper  appears  to  me  to  be  of  higher  grade  than  the  ideas  gener¬ 
ally  expressed  by  purely  totemic  peoples.”184  And  Sidney 
Hartland  also,  in  speaking  at  any  rate  of  British  Columbia, 
expresses  his  belief  in  the  modern  date  of  the  manitou  con¬ 
ception  “as  part  of  the  individualism  which  is  tending  to 
obscure  the  older  communistic  traditions.”185 

Such  conclusions  are  in  opposition  to  a  more  strict  pro¬ 
cedure  for  chronological  determination.  In  general  the  larger 
the  area  of  distribution,  the  older  we  may  judge  the  trait  to  be. 
As  we  have  seen,  there  is  no  area  of  North  America  in  which  it 
is  not  either  present  in  recent  practice,  or  may  not  be  found  in 
the  older  documents.  It  is  clearly  present  also  in  Central 
America.  Over  the  entire  area,  moreover,  we  have  traced  the 

181  Lowie:  Mandan  and  Hidatsa  Social  Organization,  p.  20. 

182  Wilson  and  Pepper:  Hidatsa  Shrine,  p.  305  sq. 

183  P.  179. 

184  Haddon:  Totemism,  p.  702. 

185  Hartland:  Presidential  Address,  p.  68. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


63 


association  of  the  vision  with  that  of  the  guardian  spirit — a  fact 
which  makes  it  exceedingly  unlikely  that  it  was  due  to  inde¬ 
pendent  development,  and  its  distribution  thus  a  matter  inde¬ 
pendent  of  chronology. 

As  a  trait  of  very  ancient  origin,  moreover,  the  guardian-spirit 
concept  is  (1)  universally  reflected  in  tribal  mythology,  (2)  knit 
in  the  most  coherent  fashion  with  diverse  cultures  from  end  to 
end  of  the  continent — and  beyond,  and  (3)  “so  ramified”  over 
and  over  again  “in  cultural  wholes  as  to  meet  us  at  every 
step.”  Finally,  if  our  analysis  of  the  “overlays”  among  the 
Pawnee,  Iroquois,  and  in  the  Southwest  is  correct,  we  must 
assume  an  antiquity  in  the  case  of  the  guardian-spirit  concept 
sufficient  to  allow  for  the  necessarily  immense  stretches  of  time 
which  would  be  necessary  for  the  growth,  for  instance,  of  the 
entire  ceremonial  systematization  of  the  Southwest.186 

There  is  no  comparable  case  to  be  made  out  for  the  antiquity 
of  totemism  in  North  America.  Even  the  clan-gens  systems  of 
the  continent,  which  have  a  wider  distribution  than  any  sort 
of  totemic  phenomena,  are  very  far  indeed  from  any  comparable 
distribution,187  and  the  evidence  shows  that  this  is  not  due  to 
the  loss  of  a  primitive  sib  organization.188  On  the  contrary, 
sib  systems  have  grown  up  in  a  number  of  different  and  isolated 
localities,189  with  very  different  associated  ideas.  The  associa¬ 
tion  of  totemic  ideas  with  these  sib  systems  is  even  less 
widespread,190  and  seems  in  some  cases  a  comparatively  late 
development.  Even  today  we  may  trace  processes  that  are 
still  acting  to  bring  about  the  existence  of  totemic  phenomena 
in  previously  non-totemic  tribes.191 

We  must  assume,  I  think,  that  nothing  in  the  totemic  situa- 


186  For  this  paragraph,  see  especially,  Sapir:  Time  Perspective. 

187Swanton:  Reconstruction,  p.  170. 

188  Ibid,  p.  173. 

189Lowie:  Primitive  Society,  p.  122  sq. 

190  Ibid,  p.  144. 

191  Swanton:  Reconstruction,  pp.  176-7;  Goldenweiser,  Social  Organization, 


64 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


tion  in  North  America  suggests  an  antiquity  comparable  to  that 
which  is  manifest  in  the  guardian-spirit  concept. 

There  is,  however,  another  problem  which  from  the  point 
of  view  of  this  analysis  is  more  significant  than  the  sporadic 
development  of  totemism  from  the  guardian  spirit,  or  the  very 
improbable  development  of  guardian-spirit  concepts  from  a 
preceding  totemism.  If,  as  we  have  attempted  to  show,  the 
complexes  formed  by  the  union  of  guardian-spirit  ideas  with 
social  organization  depend  upon  specific  factors,  and  vary  far 
too  widely  to  be  reduced  to  a  formula,  there  is  left,  nevertheless, 
the  problem  of  the  inter-action  of  their  characteristic  attitudes, 
one  upon  the  other,  in  different  parts  of  the  continent.  Dr. 
Goldenweiser  in  his  study  of  Totemism  has  already  suggested 
the  importance  of  such  reciprocal  influences.  “The  particular 
religious  coloring  assumed  by  totemism  in  any  given  cultural 
area  may  be  due  to  the  presence  in  that  area  of  beliefs  which 
are  in  no  way  totemic  in  their  origin  nor  in  their  manifestations, 
outside  the  totemic  complex.”19-  And  Dr.  Radin  in  his  de¬ 
scription  of  Winnebago  social  organization  remarks  that  “we 
must  expect  to  find  an  explanation  of  the  attitude  toward  them 
(totems)  as  clan  animals  in  the  attitude  the  Winnebago  exhibits 
toward  the  guardian  spirit.”193 

Religious  veneration  of  the  totem,  as  has  been  shown  by 
Dr.  Goldenweiser,194  is  very  rare  among  primitive  peoples 
outside  of  North  America.  Such  an  attitude,  then,  as  that 
shown  by  the  Osage,  a  Siouan  tribe  of  the  southern  Plains, 
is  all  the  more  notable.  At  the  great  tribal  rite  of  the  chiefs,  all 
gentes  have  simultaneous  ceremonials  according  to  a  similar 
pattern.  The  words  of  the  Black  Bear  gens  are  typical: 

Verily,  at  that  time  and  place,  it  has  been  said,  in  this  house, 

The  Honga,  a  people  who  possess  seven  fireplaces, 

Spake  to  the  Wacabeton,  (the  gens  whose  symbol  is  the  Black  Bear), 
saying: 


192  P.  264. 

193  P.  23. 

194  Goldenweiser:  Totemism,  p.  258,  sq. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


65 


”0,  grandfather, 

The  little  ones  have  nothing  of  which  to  make  their  bodies.” 

The  Wacabeton  made  quick  response:  “O,  little  ones, 

You  say  the  little  ones  have  nothing  of  which  to  make  their  bodies. 
Let  the  little  ones  make  of  me  their  bodies.”196 

And  the  chant  of  the  mussel  gens  continues: 

“Verily,  I  am  the  person  that  hath  made  of  the  mussel  his  body. 

When  the  little  ones  make  of  me  their  bodies, 

They  shall  always  live  to  see  old  age. 

Behold  the  wrinkles  upon  my  skin  (shell), 

Which  I  have  made  to  be  the  means  of  reaching  old  age. 

When  the  little  ones  make  of  me  their  bodies, 

They  shall  always  live  to  see  signs  of  old  age  upon  their  skins. 

The  seven  bends  of  the  river  (river  of  life) 

I  always  pass  successfully, 

And  in  my  travels  the  gods  themselves 
Have  not  the  power  to  see  the  trail  I  make. 

When  the  little  ones  make  of  me  their  bodies, 

No  one,  not  even  the  gods,  shall  be  able  to  see  the  trails  they  make.”196 

The  religious  attitude  toward  the  totem  is  obvious.  But  the 
most  interesting  fact  in  this  connection  is  that  these  chants,  the 
expression  of  the  relationship  of  the  gens  and  its  totem,  are 
strictly  analogous  to  the  chants  of  the  chief — might  we  not  call 
him  the  high  priest? — relating  a  triple  guardian-spirit  vigil, 
where,  after  fasts  of  seven  days  and  nights,  his  tutelaries  were 
revealed  to  him.197  The  parallelism  of  thought  and  imagery, 
the  equivalent  symbolism,  reveal  strikingly  the  influence  upon 
the  totemic  complex  of  the  sacred  character  of  the  guardian 
spirit  and  of  the  nature  of  its  gifts  to  those  within  its  protection. 

From  this  point  of  view,  the  totemic  area  of  the  Central 
Algonkian  forms  a  unit  with  the  Omaha  and  Osage.  Every¬ 
where  there  is  a  relatively  heightened  sense  of  a  spiritual 
connection  with  the  eponym.  How  definite  this  Fox  attitude 
is,  is  shown  in  certain  remarks  of  a  Fox  Indian.  “There  is  no 
difference  between  a  bear  and  one  who  goes  by  the  name  of  a 


195  La  Flesche:  Osage,  p.  105. 

196  Ibid,  p.  94. 

197  Ibid,  pp.  84-91. 


66 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


bear;  both  are  one  and  the  same.  The  fox  and  a  member  of 
the  Fox  clan  are  one  and  the  same  person.  The  fox  is  guardian 
to  all  those  who  bear  the  fox  name.”198  Among  the  Winnebago, 
as  elsewhere,  this  religious  totemic  attitude  has  gathered  into 
itself  the  widespread  medicine-bundle  concept.  The  specific 
possessions  of  the  clans  are  certain  war  bundles,  one  in  each 
clan.  The  Winnebago  winter  feasts  are  ceremonies  built  up 
around  these  clan  bundles,  which  “as  their  individual  history 
shows,  are  merely  gifts  from  one  spirit.  The  winter  feast  is 
then  a  society  of  all  those  who  have  obtained  blessings,  (for 
example)  from  the  thunder  bird.”199  If,  as  Dr.  Radin  suggests, 
these  clan  feasts  are  really  religious  societies  in  which  the 
influence  of  the  sib  idea  has  restricted  participation  to  the 
membership  of  the  clan — though  with  possible  exceptions  in 
the  case  of  an  outsider  with  a  specific  vision  bundle  from  that 
spirit — the  transference  of  attitude  toward  the  guardian  spirit 
to  that  toward  the  totem  is  absolutely  direct.  It  is  even  a 
clearer  example  of  the  evolution  suggested  by  Miss  Fletcher 
for  the  Omaha. 

It  is  when  we  generalize  this  interpenetration  in  this  central 
area  of  North  America,  that  we  falsify  conditions  elsewhere. 
We  have  noted  the  lack  of  any  transference  of  attitude  between 
the  two  in  the  case  of  the  Mandan.  Among  the  Wyandotte200 
the  religious  feeling  is  strong  for  the  tutelary,  but  rudimentary 
for  the  totemic  animal.  The  situation  is  equally  striking  among 
the  Lillooet  of  British  Columbia.  The  Iroquois  also  must  have 
presented  the  same  picture  in  the  time  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers. 
We  have  for  that  time  no  evidence  of  a  religious  attitude 
toward  the  totem,  while,  as  we  have  seen,  we  have  record  of 
their  guardian-spirit  practices. 

In  the  Northwest,  totemic  phenomena  are  at  every  step 
intelligible  only  in  connection  with  the  guardian-spirit  beliefs, 


198  Jones:  Notes  on  the  Fox  Indians,  p.  216. 

199  Radin:  Winnebago  Social  Organization,  p.  40. 

200  Barbeau:  MSS,  Wyandotte. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


67 


and  the  situation  is  too  complicated  to  admit  of  dogmatic 
assertions.  Still,  it  seems  fair  to  point  out  that  in  the  constant 
interaction  between  the  two,  it  is  the  guardian  spirit  as  an 
item  of  social  organization  that  has  triumphed  over  the  guardian 
spirit  as  a  religious  experience.  We  have  only  to  contrast  the 
Kwakiutl  requirements  for  obtaining  a  guardian,  with  the 
simple  vision-experience  of  the  Omaha,  or  the  Winnebago.  Or 
the  assignment  of  a  tutelary  among  the  Kwakiutl  or  the 
Tshimshian  to  an  infant,  that  it  may  be  from  birth  a  member 
of  an  upper,  that  is,  initiated  class.201  The  influence  of  the 
guardian  spirit  upon  totemism,  as  involving  heightened 
religious  coloring,  is  seen  primarily  in  the  origin  myths,  and 
in  the  attitude  toward  the  spirit  giving  the  crest. 

Totemism  in  North  America,  therefore,  according  to  various 
patterns  and  in  differing  degrees,  tends  to  take  its  coloring 
from  the  guardian-spirit  concept,  and  the  high-water  marks  of 
a  religious  attitude  towards  the  totem,  which  beyond  doubt 
are  found  on  this  continent,  are  intelligible  from  this  fact.  In 
spite  of  this,  totemic  societies  are  also  found  quite  uninfluenced 
by  this  guardian-spirit  cycle,  however  strongly  it  might  be 
developed  even  in  that  particular  totemic  tribe.  We  are 
dealing,  then,  with  a  situation  essentially  similar  to  that  of 
puberty  rites,  or  the  secret  societies,  which,  in  North  America, 
did  with  great  frequency  stand  in  some  sort  of  relation  to  the 
guardian-spirit  cycle,  but  which  might  be,  and  often  were, 
organized  on  entirely  other  bases. 

5.  Shamanism.  Shamanism,  unlike  puberty  ceremonials, 
totemism,  or  secret1  societies,  is  practically  everywhere  in  some 
fashion  or  in  somejaspect  built  around  the  vision-guardian- 
spirit  complex,  but|the  two  are  associated  according  to  very 
different  patterns. 

A.  According  to  thef  democratic  practices  typical  of  the 
Plains,  all  men  must  seek  the  guardian  spirit  by  way  of  the 
vision,  and  there  is  properly  no  shamanistic  class.  All  men  have 


201  Boas:  Fifth  Report  on  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  854. 


68 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


personal  relations  with  the  supernatural;  those  who  become 
especially  noteworthy  in  their  success  in  healing,  procuring 
desired  weather  conditions,  or  insuring  a  successful  chase  or  war 
party,  do,  however,  come  to  be  singled  out  as  medicine  men. 
It  is  a  demarcation  only  between  those  with  more  or  less  super¬ 
natural  power,  and  no  stronger  than  between  those  possessed  of 
more  or  less  bravery  or  wealth. 

B.  All  men  may  seek  guardian  spirits,  and  a  certain  class  of 
tutelaries  may  entail  the  adoption  of  the  shamanistic  pro¬ 
fession.  This  is  the  practice  of  the  Thompson,  and  of  the 
Plateau  in  general.  In  a  different  setting,  it  plays  a  part  on 
the  Northwest  coast. 

C.  All  men  may  seek  the  guardian  spirit,  and  it  may  be 
regarded  as  the  essential  part  of  the  shaman’s  equip¬ 
ment.  Nevertheless,  the  demarcation  between  shamans  and 
non-shamans  is  drawn  on  lines  aside  from  guardian-spirit 
considerations — usually  payment,  or  apprenticeship  to  an 
experienced  shaman  whose  place  the  candidate  may  occupy 
at  his  death.  Or  it  may  be  that  the  shamanistic  profession  will 
descend  only  by  heredity. 

D.  Guardian  spirits  may  be  the  prerogative  strictly  of  the 
shaman,  who  alone  seeks  the  vision.  This  is  characteristic  of 
California,  and  of  the  Penobscot,  and  the  Eskimo. 

E.  It  may  be  not  the  guardian  spirit  but  the  vision  that  is 
the  prerogative  of  the  shaman.  Guardian  spirits  meanwhile 
may  be  considered  as  belonging  to  every  man  in  consequence 
of  initiation  into  the  clan.202 

There  is,  then,  no  fixity  in  the  tribal  conventions  by  which 
shamans  are  related  to  their  guardian-spirit  vigils.  The  con¬ 
nections  are  in  every  case  matters  of  social  patterning. 

As  we  have  already  noted  (pp. 32-40) ,  there  are  also  noteworthy 
exceptions  in  North  America  to  this  interrelation  of  shamanism 
with  tribal  guardian-spirit  practices;  both  among  the  Iroquois 
and  in  the  Southwest  it  is  built  up,  for  the  most  part,  upon 


202  Speck:  Yuchi. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA  69 

other  considerations.  It  would  seem  that  this  divorce  had 
taken  place  sporadically  also,  as  among  the  Southern  Wintun, 
the  Patwin,  of  California.  Among  these  people  shamanism  is 
an  hereditary  privilege  of  a  paternal  family,  as  salmon  fishing, 
basket  making,  and  ceremonial  fire-tending  are  hereditary 
privileges  of  other  families.  An  amulet  or  medicine  was 
inherited  by  every  member  of  the  family  who  practised  his 
rightful  prerogative,  but  no  vision  experiences  or  special 
tutelary  concepts  are  recorded.203  The  similarity  of  the  native 
attitude  to  that  on  Vancouver  Island,  for  instance,  in  its  stress 
on  prerogative  and  inheritance,  makes  it  all  the  more  striking 
that  where  so  small  a  shift  could  obliterate  the  vision  and  the 
guardian  spirit  from  the  tribal  pattern,  the  sporadic  case  of  the 
Patwin  stands  practically  alone. 

Up  to  this  point  I  have  used  the  word  shaman  as  a  con¬ 
venient  designation  for  all  religious  practitioners.  This  usage, 
however,  is  by  no  means  an  accurate  reflection  of  native 
thought.  In  the  majority  of  North  American  tribes  there  is 
no  blanket  term  for  any  such  group.  Differentiation  exists 
practically  everywhere  except  in  one  area,  which,  from  our 
present  knowledge,  seems  to  be  continuous,  centering  in  the 
Plateau  and  running  north  through  the  Dene  and  the  Eskimo; 
in  the  east  covering  a  strip  of  the  Western  Plains;  and  in  the 
southwest  a  strip  of  central  California.  Everywhere  else,  native 
custom  classifies,  but  the  demarcations  are  various.  For  ease 
of  discussion  we  may  group  the  native  distinctions  into  those 
classes  (1)  where  members  of  one  class  may  be  also  members  of 
the  other,  and  (2)  where  they  are  mutually  exclusive,  perhaps 
mutually  opposed. 

(1)  In  by  far  the  most  extended  center  of  this  first,  not 
mutually  exclusive,  type,  the  different  classes  of  medicine  men 
are  so  little  related  that  it  is  almost  impossible  even  to  contrast 
them  one  with  another.  The  Central  Algonkian  have  the 
strongly  developed  organized  rite  of  the  Midewiwin,  “which 


203  McKern:  Functional  Families  of  the  Patwin,  p.  246  sq. 


70 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


has  developed  from  the  cohesion  of  different  cultural  elements. 
Yet  outside  of,  and  disassociated  from,  this  organization,  two 
professional  classes  of  shamans — Wabano  and  Djesakid — occur 
in  practically  all  the  tribes  of  this  group.’’204  The  initiation  in 
all  three  is  on  the  basis  of  guardian  spirit  revelation,  except  that 
purchase  is  today  standardized  for  the  Midewiwin205  There  is 
no  feeling  of  differentiation  between  those  practising  good  and 
evil  magic;  the  myths  describe  the  activities  of  all  classes  with 
equal  approbation;206  in  fact  all  three  are  set  over  against  the 
evil  witches’  society.207  It  would  be  easiest  to  understand  these 
widespread  disassociated  and  yet  parallel  coexisting  types  of 
medicine  men  as  separate  cults  of  quite  similar  pattern;  yet 
there  is  no  organization  except  for  the  Midi  and  these  seem 
once  to  have  been  individual  practitioners.208  The  shamanistic 
classes  may  be  representative  of  different  strands  introduced 
by  diffusion — for  example,  the  Wabano  specialize  in  fire 
tricks  which  are  identical  with  those  of  the  Dakota  Heyoka.209 
Or  they  may  have  had  their  origin  in  the  vision  of  individuals 
in  this  area  and  thus  naturally  conform  closely  to  a  similar 
pattern.  There  is  no  restriction  as  to  a  medicine  man  of  one 
type  joining  also  the  ranks  of  the  other. 

This  non-exclusive  type  of  shamanistic  categories  we  find 
again  on  the  southern  Pacific  Coast.  The  Wasco,  a  Chinook 
tribe  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  Columbia,  and  the  Maidu  to 
the  south,  may  be  taken  as  examples.  The  distinctions  they 
drew,  however,  were  not  the  same;  the  Maidu  set  over  against 
the  curing  doctor  the  dreamer  who  was  also  able  to  communi¬ 
cate  with  ghosts,  but  all  healers  also  spoke  with  spirits,  though 
not  vice  versa.210  The  Wasco  had  shooting  doctors  and  cura- 

204  Speck:  Penobscot  Shamanism,  p.  275. 

205  Radin:  Winnebago  Medicine  Dance,  p.  183. 

206  Jones:  Ojibwa  Texts,  p.  315. 

207  Hoffman:  Menomini,  p.  182  sq. 

208  Radin:  Winnebago  Medicine  Dance,  p.  180. 

209  Skinner:  Menomini,  p.  191. 

210  Dixon:  Northern  Maidu,  p.  271. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


71 


tive  ones,  the  shooting  ones  being  the  higher.211  Wherever  we 
have  direct  statement  in  this  area,  the  power  of  the  medicine 
man  in  every  category  came  from  guardian  spirits  in  a  vision. 

(2)  Usually,  however,  the  two  or  more  categories  of  shamans 
were  looked  upon  as  mutually  exclusive.  This  was  probably 
the  rule  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  Heckewelder  distinguishes 
among  the  Delaware  the  Medeu,  the  physician,  from  the 
Powwow,  or  juggler,  the  shaman  proper,  much  higher  in  rank, 
gifted  with  divination.212  Among  the  Lenape,  medicine  men 
were  organized  in  two  societies,  holders  of  good  medicine  and  of 
bad.213  Among  the  Cherokee,  tradition  preserves  the  story  of  a 
hereditary  caste  of  priests  which  was  murdered  by  the  tribe 
leaving  the  field  exclusively  to  the  individual  shamanistic 
practitioners.214  Among  the  Penobscot  we  meet  again  the 
distinction  between  dreamers  and  magicians.  The  dreamers 
were  a  much  humbler  sort  to  whom  the  future  was  foretold  in 
dreams;  balls  of  fire  sometimes  issued  from  their  lips  during 
revelation.215  They  never  caused  harm,  as  the  shamans  proper 
were  only  too  likely  to  do.  The  Hupa  distinguished  a  dancing 
doctor  who  diagnosed  the  disease,  and  a  sucking  doctor,  who 
was  able  to  cure.  At  initiation  the  sucking  doctor  got  the 
“pain” — the  usual  crystal  object  of  northern  California — and 
the  dancing  doctor,  the  vision.  Both  again  were  set  over  against 
the  witches.216  Among  the  Takelma,  the  relation  between  the 
two  classes  was  one  of  recognized  hostility,  the  beneficent 
shaman  being  often  hired  to  counteract  the  work  of  the  malig¬ 
nant.  They  appealed  to  entirely  different  spirits  as  super¬ 
natural  helpers  and  made  use  of  different  medicine  songs.217 
It  was  possible,  when  it  was  suspected  that  one  of  these  danger- 


211  Sapir:  Takelma  Indians,  p.  45. 

212  Heckewelder:  Indians  of  Pennsylvania,  p.  228,  sq. 

213  Harrington:  Preliminary  Study  of  Lenape,  p.  217. 

214  Mooney:  Cherokee  Myths,  pp.  392-393. 

216  Speck:  Penobscot  Shamanism,  p.  288. 

216  Goddard:  Hupa,  p.  65. 

217  Sapir:  Takelma,  p.  45. 


72 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


ous  shamans  had  over-indulged  his  power  to  “eat  up  people/’ 
for  the  good  shaman  to  drive  out  his  guardian  spirits  visibly 
from  his  bound  body.  As  many  as  twenty  such  tutelaries 
were  known  to  have  been  driven  out  of  one  such  goyo.218  But 
the  helper  of  either  type  was  obtained  in  the  same  way,  by 
vision. 

But  it  is  among  the  Pawnee  that  the  theoretical  distinction 
between  their  holy  men  becomes  of  greatest  importance.  The 
whole  sanction  and  authority  for  the  Skidi  federation  rests  on 
the  bundle  scheme  presided  over  by  the  priests;  the  shamans 
are  a  thing  apart.219  Shamans  received  their  power  from  the 
animal  lodges,  priests  from  the  gods  of  the  heavens;220  shamans 
have  to  do  with  healing,  priests  with  war  and  the  procuring  of 
food;  shamans  specialize  in  sleight  of  hand,  priests  are  occupied 
in  following  the  nearly  unbroken  ritual  throughout  the  year. 
In  theory,  no  shaman  enters  the  rites  of  the  priestly  cycle,  and 
vice  versa.  The  vision,  however,  is  an  essential  for  both  orders 
and  the  myths  stress  it  equally  in  the  stories  of  priests  and  of 
shamans.  For  both  orders  the  predisposition  is  stressed  along 
with  emphasis  on  the  extraordinary  experience:  “Crow  Feather 
was  very  peculiar.  He  never  took  part  in  ceremonials;  he 
never  consecrated  buffalo  to  propitiate  the  gods.  Every  night 
he  went  out  in  the  hills,  gazed  at  the  sky,  wondering  at  the 
powers  there.”  He  was  blest  with  a  vision.221  “As  the  child 
grew  he  developed  many  mysterious  ways  and  acted  pecu¬ 
liarly.”222  Over  and  over  again  this  peculiarity  is  stressed  in  all 
visions.  In  certain  myths  the  two  groups  are  put  specifically 
on  a  par  as  far  as  supernatural  experience  goes;  one,  for  instance, 
tells  the  story  of  one  who  was  eventually  struck  by  lightning 
and  heard  its  language.  “He  had  been  wandering  over  the 

218  Sapir:  Takelma  Texts,  p.  183. 

219  Wissler:  Pawnee  Religion,  MSS. 

220  Dorsey:  Traditions  of  Skidi  Pawnee,  xix. 

221  Murie:  Pawnee  Societies,  p.  609. 

222  Dorsey:  Pawnee,  p.  241.  See  also  pp.  62,  261,  346;  Skidi  Pawnee,  p.  44, 


199. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


73 


land,  and  the  gods  in  the  heavens  had  refused  to  listen  to  him; 
the  animal  gods  had  also  refused  to  hear  him  crying.”223 

Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  represent  in  some  way 
these  enormously  common  classifications  of  the  tribal  medicine 
men.  It  has  been  proposed  that  the  word  “shaman”  be  limited  to 
denote  those  psychically  sensitive  individuals  who  derive  their 
religious  prestige  from  supernatural  experience,  and  be  set  over 
against  that  of  “priest,”  the  keeper  of  the  rites  and  traditions 
and  sacred  things  of  the  tribe.  “The  priest  then  must  master 
with  infinite  detail  the  arbitrary  forms  of  rituals.  In  last 
analysis,  the  priest  must  be  a  man  of  intellect;  the  shaman  may 
be  a  veritable  idiot.”224 

However  closely  this  follows  the  distinction  in  the  Maya  and 
Aztec  centers  of  the  south,  for  North  America  it  seems  to  be 
significant  in  very  few  settings.  It  is  not  easily  applicable 
even  in  the  extreme  case  of  the  Pawnee,  for  the  supernormal 
experience  was  stressed  with  apparently  equal  emphasis  for 
both  groups.  For  the  Central  Algonkian  it  is  more  applicable 
since  the  Midi  did  develop  complex  ritual  and  did  continually 
substitute  purchase  for  the  vision,  as  a  requirement  for  admis¬ 
sion.  But,  as  a  category  of  clairvoyants  and  of  priests,  I  doubt 
whether  it  would  be  recognized  by  an  Ojibwa  or  a  Menomini. 
The  classes  are  too  far  disassociated — unorganized  cults  with 
different  practices  and  tricks — but  essentially  moulded  by  the 
same  tribal  pattern. 

The  Cherokee  myth,  if  it  is  indeed  history,  suits  well  with  the 
priest-shaman  distinction,  as  does  all  we  know  of  the  Natchez 
Suns  and  medicine  men,225  though  whether  the  demarcation 
represented  a  distinction  between  supernatural  experience  and 
guardianship  of  sacred  lore,  we  shall  never  know.226  On  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  we  should  judge  that  tribal  tradition  was  in 
the  keeping  of  the  civil  chief;  of  the  classes  of  the  medicine 

223  Dorsey:  Skidi  Pawnee,  p.  95. 

224  Wissler:  American  Indian,  p.  191. 

225  Swanton:  Tribes  of  the  Lower  Mississippi,  pp.  80  and  174. 

226  But  see  ibid,  p.  178. 


74 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


men,  the  Powow  had  much  the  higher  prestige,  the  Medeu 
being  a  sort  of  religious  herbalist.227  On  the  Northwest  coast, 
nothing  in  all  the  varied  native  classifications  suggests  align¬ 
ment  as  priests  and  shamans. 

Essentially  priestly  functions  were  however  exercised  in  the 
Northwest  quite  outside  the  ranks  of  religious  practitioners. 
The  chief  has  certain  functions  of  conducting  the  ritual  and 
making  the  spirits  “come  through”  the  candidates,  which  are 
very  similar  to  the  priestly  character.228  Among  the  Thompson 
River  Indians,  the  chief  leads  in  all  religious  affairs,  and  is  more 
of  a  high  priest  than  a  civil  officer.229  Indeed,  it  is  quite  usual 
to  find  priestly  functions  exercised  by  tribal  chiefs  in  many 
cases  as  among  the  Osage,230  Cheyenne,231  Iroquois,232  and  the 
Natchez,233  and  at  least  for  the  North  American  Indians,  it 
is  arbitrary  to  assign  such  functions  to  a  subdivision  of  the 
category  of  medicine  men. 

Just  as  priestly  functions  are  at  times  exercised  by  religious 
practitioners,  and  at  times  by  those  outside  their  ranks,  so 
it  is  equally  significant  that  at  the  other  extreme  of  shamanistic 
practices  witchcraft  is  sometimes  within,  and  sometimes  with¬ 
out,  this  complex.  The  Central  Algonkian,  the  Takelma,  the 
Penobscot,  and  others  (see  above  pp.  44-45)  regard  witchcraft  as 
one  of  the  gifts  of  tutelaries,  and  the  powers  are  acquired  in  the 
same  fashion  as  more  legitimate  guardians.  On  the  contrary, 
witches  on  the  Northwest  Coast  are  entirely  outside  the  religious 
realm.  For  the  Tsimshian,  as  for  the  Kwakiutl,  witchcraft  and 
shamanism  were  entirely  distinct.234  Witches  achieved  their 
purposes  by  burning  pieces  of  the  enemy’s  clothing  with  a 


227  Heckewelder:  Indians  of  Pennsylvania,  p.  228,  sq. 

228  Swan  ton:  Haida,  p.  38. 

229  Swanton:  Article,  Shamanism,  in  Handbook. 

230  La  Flesche:  Osage,  pp.  70,  71,  84,  ff. 

231  Grinnell:  Cheyenne  Mysteries,  p.  544. 

232  Hale:  Book  of  Rites,  p.  59,  sq. 

233  Swanton:  Lower  Mississippi  Tribes,  p.  175. 

234  Boas:  Tsimshian,  p.  563. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


75 


corpse,  or  by  a  more  complicated  ceremony,  operating  however 
with  the  same  paraphernalia.233  For  the  Dene,  “ordinary 
mortals”  practised  witchcraft.236 

Among  the  Haida,  “anyone  might  become  a  wizard,  if  he 
possessed  himself  of  the  proper  formulae.”237 

Much  less  obvious  distinctions  were  also  made  on  the  Pacific 
Coast,  between  the  functions  of  those  having  supernatural 
experiences  and  those  not  having  them.  Thus  among  the 
Nootka,  those  having  fasted  and  obtained  guardians  “caught 
souls,”  that  is,  they  knew  when  souls  were  absent,  and  could  go 
after  them  and  restore  them  to  the  body,  and  so  prevent  death; 
but  the  doctors  proper,  the  “workers”  who  cured  all  diseases 
due  to  all  other  causes  than  the  wandering  of  the  soul,  required 
no  supernatural  experiences.  The  soul-catchers  were  the 
higher  in  prestige.238  Among  the  Songish,  of  southern  Van¬ 
couver  Island,  the  duties  of  both  these  classes  were  combined 
in  the  squna/am,  the  higher  class  of  shamans,  who  became  such 
by  intercourse  with  supernatural  beings;  but  a  second  class, 
the  si'oua,  were  taught  by  other  sl'oua,  upon  payment  of  heavy 
fees  for  instruction.  Her  functions — for  this  person  was  gen¬ 
erally  a  woman — were  the  appeasing  of  hostile  powers.  She 
addressed  them  in  a  sacred  language  summoning  good  luck. 
She  had,  too,  along  with  the  squna/am,  certain  powers  over 
diseases  not  due  to  absence  of  the  soul  from  the  body.239 

The  native  categories  into  which  medicine  men  are  divided 
in  North  America  are  hardly,  then,  represented  in  any  signif¬ 
icant  way  by  a  priest-shaman  distinction.  Priesthood,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  witchcraft  on  the  other,  exist  sometimes  with, 
and  sometimes  without,  the  accompanying  requirement  of 
supernatural  experience.  On  the  other  hand,  the  distinction 
between  the  functions  of  those  having  visions,  and  those  not 

233  Boas:  Tenth  Report  on  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  581. 

236  Morice,  Dene,  p.  208. 

237  Swanton:  The  Haida,  p.  41. 

238  Boas:  Sixth  Report  on  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  596. 

239  Ibid,  p.  580  sq. 


76 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


having  them  may  be  that  between  doctors  and  appeasers  of 
evil  spirits;  between  soul-catchers  and  curers.  The  whole 
situation  is  entirely  without  rule;  the  categories  which  occur  in 
any  case  are  due  again  to  specific  factors,  and  have  no  universal 
or  functional  significance.  They  may  be  reflections  sometimes 
of  the  differentiated  activities  of  the  shamans — as  of  good  and 
evil,  prophesying  and  curing;  still  more  often,  perhaps,  the 
outstanding  fact  is  that  a  practice  of  definite  geographical  dis¬ 
tribution  has  been  drawn  in  different  parts  of  this  area  into 
different  antitheses.  So  the  dreamers  who  are  familiar  to  us  in 
Iroquois  practice,  among  the  Penobscot  are  contrasted  with 
the  magicians;  and  the  fire-handlers  of  the  Plains  become  among 
the  Algonkian  a  shamanistic  group  set  over  against  the  Midi 
and  the  Djesakid. 

6.  Economic  Life.  Just  as  the  guardian  spirit  enters  in 
certain  localities  into  the  closest  relationship  with  totemism, 
secret  societies,  or  puberty  rites,  so  in  equivalent  fashion,  it 
enters  the  economic  life  of  a  people.  There  are  of  course  areas 
where  the  one  is  entirely  divorced  from  the  other.  This  is 
especially  true,  for  instance,  of  Central  California,  where  the 
characteristic  involuntary  visions  of  the  shamans  were  for 
healing,  or  the  knowledge  of  procedure  in  mourning,  and  the 
like;  and  had  the  slightest  possible  relation  to  wealth,  directly, 
or  indirectly.  This  is  true  in  general  wherever  guardian  spirits 
were  prerogatives  of  the  medicine  men,  as  for  example  among 
the  Penobscot. 

Among  the  Haida,  wealth  itself  might  be  a  guardian  spirit 
in  the  character  of  Property  Woman  and  her  child240  and  there, 
as  also  generally  upon  the  Plateau  and  the  Plains,  one  sought  a 
tutelary  for  success  in  obtaining  the  things  of  this  world.  The 
vision,  that  is,  was  an  instrumentality  turned  chiefly  toward 
the  social  life,  one  aspect  of  which  is  always  economic. 
‘‘Through  visions  one  might  rise  from  abject  poverty  to  social 
prestige.”241  It  depended  on  the  idea  of  success  current  in  the 


240  Swanton:  Haida,  p.  29. 

241  Lowie:  Crow  Religion,  p.  323. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


77 


tribe,  what  aspect  was  emphasized.  Among  the  Central  Algon- 
kian,  the  stress  on  economic  success  was  more  than  equalled  by 
that  on  long  life  and  divination  and  success  in  passing  the 
dangers  of  the  world  to  come.242  But  here,  too,  among  the 
neighboring  Winnebago  the  counsels  of  the  elders  emphasize 
the  presence  of  the  economic  motive.  “Fast  for  your  position 
in  life.”  “You  have  it  in  your  power  to  see  to  it  that  you  will 
never  be  hungry,”  that  is,  by  obtaining  a  vision.243 

Such  counsels  are  unthinkable  on  Puget  Sound.  Here, 
there  was  apparently  no  connection  with  wealth,  or  with  any 
kind  of  prestige.  A  powerful  man  might  have  a  tutelary,  but 
he  might  not.  And  one  who  was  not  a  shaman,  and  had  a 
guardian  spirit,  was  regarded  as  “just  harmless.”244 

It  is,  however,  through  purchase  that  the  guardian  spirit 
enters  the  economic  life  directly,  and  becomes  a  corner  stone 
of  it.  This  has  happened  among  the  Blackfoot.  Visions  are 
salable.  Each  man  must  go  out  once  in  his  life  to  seek  a  vision 
on  his  own  account.  In  order  to  obtain  a  recognized  position 
in  the  tribe,  however,  he  must  also  buy  ' other  men’s  visions. 
These  he  will  recount  in  the  first  person,  exactly  as  he  tells 
those  which  have  appeared  to  him  personally.  Such  transfer 
is  known  as  “purchasing  the  medicine  bundle,”  but  what  he 
really  buys  is  the  vision,  and  its  song  and  special  powers;  the 
bundle  he  often  makes  up  anew  according  to  specifications.245 

This  exchange  of  commodities  as  represented  by  visions  has 
become  the  basis  of  the  tribal  economic  system.  Young  men 
were  urged  to  purchase  medicine  bundles  as  those  with  us  are 
urged  to  open  a  savings  bank  account.  They  were  good 
investments.  Dandies  purchased  them  to  display  their 
wealth.246  The  Blackfoot  held  tribal  gatherings  where  they 
recited  the  bundles  they  had  owned,  and  the  property  they 

242  Jones:  Ojibwa  Texts,  pp.  537,  577. 

243  Radin:  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago,  p.  454. 

244  Haeberlin :  MSS.  Puget  Sound. 

245  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Bundles,  p.  288. 

246  Ibid,  p.  288. 


78 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


had  paid  for  them.  Those  who  had  a  long  list  were  cheered, 
while  those  having  a  short  one  were  ridiculed.247  Other  things 
besides  visions  were  swept  into  this  general  procedure.  Shirts 
of  the  ordinary  Plains  pattern ;  privileges  of  performing  certain 
portions  of  ceremonial,  such  as  the  torture,  for  instance — the 
Sun  dance  itself — were  all  treated  in  the  same  manner.248 

Nowhere  probably  are  guardian  spirits  as  basic  in  the 
economic  system  as  among  the  Blackfoot,  but  they  may  be 
purchased  in  the  same  way  among  the  Crow,249  Arapaho,250 
Hidatsa,251  Winnebago,252  Ojibwa,253  and  Sarsi.254 

Among  the  Copper  Eskimo,  control  over  any  familiar  may 
be  obtained  by  purchase,  but  all  that  the  owner  can  impart  is 
his  good  will  and  the  knowledge  of  how  to  approach  and 
summon  the  particular  spirit  that  has  been  bought.  The  aspirant 
must  go  out  to  some  lonely  place  and  summon  the  spirit,  which 
may  or  may  not  appear.255 

In  such  a  case,  the  distinction  between  buying  the  guardian 
spirit  and  paying  for  instruction  is  impossible  to  determine;  it 
may  be  that  it  is  specifically  the  shamanistic  instruction  which 
is  obtained  by  the  required  payment.  So  the  Kwakiutl  could 
buy  the  practice  of  shamanism  at  the  throwing  dance,  and  the 
purchaser  and  his  instructor  would  then  retire  to  the  woods  for 
four  days.256  And  among  the  Ojibwa  if  a  man  did  not  have  a 
dream  to  that  effect,  he  paid  preliminary  fees  to  an  individual 
shaman,  and  additional  amounts  for  every  degree  he  under¬ 
took.257 


247  Ibid,  p.  276. 

243  Ibid,  p.  107,  sq. 

249  Lowie:  Crow  Religion,  p.  323. 

250  Kroeber:  Arapaho,  p.  450. 

251  Lowie:  Hidatsa  Sun  Dance,  p.  416. 

252  Radin:  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago  Indian,  p.  459. 

253  Skinner:  Midewiwin  of  Ojibwa,  p.  163. 

254  Goddard:  Sarsi  Texts,  p.  233. 

255  Jenness:  Copper  Eskimo,  p.  191. 

256  Boas:  Fifth  Report  on  Northwest  Tribes,  p.  570. 

257  Hoffman:  Midewiwin  of  Ojibwa,  p.  163. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


79 


7.  Miscellaneous  Culture  Traits.  Whatever  it  is  we  fix  our 
attention  upon,  the  type  of  culture-trait  association  into  which 
it  enters  with  the  guardian-spirit  concept  is  equivalent.  It  is 
as  true  of  an  object  of  material  culture  as  of  puberty  rites. 
There  has  been  reported  over  a  very  large  part  of  North 
America,  from  Alaska  to  Alabama,  and  from  New  Mexico  to 
the  Great  Lakes,  a  most  curious  taboo,  for  the  principal  actor 
of  a  ceremony,  against  scratching  the  head  or  body  with  the 
hand.  To  this  end  there  is  provided  a  head-scratcher  of  bone 
or  wood.  The  emotional  stability  of  this  trifle  is  very  striking; 
its  instability  of  objective  association,  equally  so.  Among  the 
Creek  of  the  Southeast,  in  1800,  the  head-scratcher  was  obliga¬ 
tory  during  the  guardian-spirit  puberty  fast.  “During  this 
period  he  must  not  pick  his  ears  nor  scratch  his  head  with  his 
fingers,  but  use  a  small  stick.”258  Here  then  it  is  paraphernalia 
of  the  vision  quest. 

Among  the  Thompson  River  Indians  of  British  Columbia, 
likewise,  boys  wore  a  small  bone  during  the  puberty  isolation 
for  the  same  purpose,259  but  here  girls  wore  it  also  during  their 
seclusion,  which,  as  we  saw,  had  usually  no  guardian-spirit 
objective.260  From  British  Columbia  to  New  Mexico  it  is 
over  and  over  reported  as  having  entered  exclusively  into  the 
girls’  puberty  rites.261 

Among  the  Pima,  of  the  extreme  Southwest,  there  exists  a 
very  elaborate  ceremonial  purification  of  the  warrior  who  has 
slain  an  enemy,  culminating  in  a  tribal  war  dance.  During 
the  twenty  days  of  this  ceremony,  the  man  who  is  purified 
must  wear  his  hair  knotted  in  a  peculiar  fashion,  through  which 
his  scratching  stick  is  thrust.262  But  in  Alaska,  the  scratching 


258  Hawkins:  Creek  Confederacy,  p.  78. 

259  Teit:  Thompson  River  Indians,  p.  318. 

260  Ibid,  p.  312. 

261  Teit:  Shuswap,  p.  588;  Haeberlin:  MSS,  Puget  Sound;  Sapir:  Nootka 
Girls’  Ceremonial,  p.  78;  Goddard:  Hupa,  p.  53;  Dixon:  Maidu,  p.  233;  Sparkman: 
Luiseno,  p.  266;  Goddard:  (Apache)  Handbook,  p.  172. 

262  Lloyd:  Pima  Myths,  p.  90,  sq. 


80 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


stick  is  worn  around  the  shaman’s  neck  as  part  of  his  dis¬ 
tinguishing  costume.263  And  among  the  Ojibwa  it  entered  into 
still  another  complex,  and  the  scratching  stick  was  required 
on  a  novice’s  first  three  war  expeditions.264 

Such  an  example  from  the  realm  of  material  culture  reduces 
to  its  most  obvious  form  this  desultory  association  of  culture 
traits.  Perhaps  it  is  equally  obvious  in  the  distribution  of 
certain  wide-spread  folkloristic  concepts,  as,  for  instance,  the 
loss  of  the  soul  before  death.  In  native  thought  this  entails 
illness  and  finally  death,  all  of  which  it  is  the  duty  of  the  shaman 
to  counteract.  This  concept  is  prominent  among  the  Chuck¬ 
chee  of  northeastern  Asia.265  It  explains  all  illness  among  the 
Eskimo  of  Smith  Sound;266  it  occurs  among  the  Haida,  down 
the  length  of  the  Pacific  Coast,267  and  as  far  inland  as  the 
Thompson  River.268  In  Laguna,  in  the  Southwest,  it  was  the 
heart  that  was  similarly  lost  and  restored.269 

In  the  region  of  Puget  Sound,  the  idea  was  elaborated  until  it 
became  one  of  the  most  prominent  features  of  their  cultural 
life.  Only  here  it  was  not  the  soul  that  was  lost,  but  the 
guardian  spirit.  That  is,  here  this  widespread  mythological 
concept  of  the  lost  soul  has  been  reinterpreted  according  to 
orthodox  guardian-spirit  formalae.  There  are  among  these 
Salish  two  types  of  guardian  spirits:  one  shamanistic,  of 
which  all  refer  to  the  power  of  healing;  one  profane,  in  the 
sense  that  they  are  for  individual  profit  in  gambling,  hunting 
and  fishing,  etc.  It  is  this  profane  tutelary  that  is  lost,  and  the 
shamans  who  seek  it  must  have  one  particular  subdivision  of 
shamanistic  spirits  which  gives  them  this  prerogative.  The 
ceremony  which  is  dramatized  out  of  the  notion  of  the  journey 

263  Swanton:  Tlingit,  p.  464. 

264  Tanner:  Narrative,  p.  122. 

265  Bogoras:  Traditions  of  Northeast  Asia,  p.  589. 

266  Rasmussen:  Life  with  the  Eskimo,  p.  110. 

267  Goddard:  Hupa  Texts,  p.  248;  Boas:  Kwakiutl,  p.  561;  Boas:  Tsimshian, 
p.  558  sq.;  Hooper:  Cahuilla,  p.  340. 

268  Teit:  Thompson  River,  p.  363  and  342. 

269  Parsons:  Laguna,  p.  118,  sq. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


81 


of  the  shamans  to  the  land  of  the  dead  in  search  of  the  tutelary 
is  the  most  prominent  in  the  whole  cultural  area.  It  requires 
the  cooperation  of  eight  shamans,  and,  since  so  many  are  never 
blessed  with  this  type  of  guardian  in  any  one  tribe,  the  ceremony 
becomes  thus  a  great  intertribal  affair.  If  on  their  return  the 
shamans  sing  the  guardian-spirit  song  of  anyone  at  all,  it  is  a 
sign  that  his  tutelary,  unknown  to  him,  has  been  gone,  and  is 
now  brought  back  by  the  returning  shamans.  He  is  of  course 
grateful  and  willing  to  pay  heavily  for  their  services  in  restoring 
his  guardian.270 

Again,  it  is  worth  while  to  note  the  kinds  of  relationship 
which  the  mythological  background  in  general  sets  up  with  the 
guardian-spirit  concept.  The  Thompson  River  Indians  are 
well  at  the  one  extreme.  Great  as  is  the  part  which  guardian- 
spirit  practices  play  in  the  life  of  the  tribe,  there  is  an  almost 
entire  absence  of  guardian-spirit  incident  or  motivation  in  their 
myths  and  traditions.271  Moreover,  not  one  item  of  the  mytho¬ 
logical  setting  has  influenced  the  guardian-spirit  practices  in 
any  observable  way:  neither  the  notions  of  cosmology,  nor  the 
transformer  cycle,  nor  the  traditional  tales. 

The  Crow  have  a  great  bulk  of  guardian-spirit  adventure  in 
their  myths,  but  of  a  reciprocal  influence,  there  is  almost  as 
little  as  among  the  Thompson.272  The  Plains  as  a  whole  have 
incorporated  hardly  one  mythological  notion  in  all  their  guard¬ 
ian-spirit  practices.  The  Northwest  Coast,  on  the  other  hand, 
could  not  conceive  their  guardian-spirit  complex  without  the 
background  of  mythology;  it  is  from  these  that  the  great 
number  of  the  guardian  spirits  are  derived,  with  all  their  gifts 
and  personalities  and  life  histories.  In  turn,  the  greater  part 
of  their  mythology  is  made  up  of  stories  of  the  guardian-spirit 
type.  That  is,  on  the  Northwest  Coast,  these  two  culture 
traits,  kept  so  conspicuously  separate  in  another  region, 


270  Haeberlin:  Sbetetdaq,  p.  249,  sq. 

271  Teit:  Thompson  River  Myths. 

272  Lowie:  Crow  Myths. 


82 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


have  cross-fertilized  one  another,  and  become  unintelligible 
the  one  without  the  other.273 

Perhaps  this  trait  is  most  conspicuous,  however,  among  the 
Eskimo  whose  customs  in  regard  to  the  guardian  spirit  and  its 
relation  to  the  Sedna  myth  we  have  already  described.  Mythol¬ 
ogy,  then,  may  or  may  not  play  an  important  part  in  the  guard¬ 
ian-spirit  cycle  of  ideas. 

This  same  fluid  recombination  of  cultural  elements  is  equally 
apparent  when  we  trace  the  association  of  the  guardian-spirit 
concept  with  the  taboo  against  the  killing  or  eating  of  the 
animal.  Food  taboo,  in  some  connection  or  other,  is  universal 
in  North  America,  as  it  is  among  all  primitive  peoples.  In 
some  tribes,  its  motivation  was  taken  over  emphatically  by 
guardian-spirit  attitudes,  but  there  is  no  constant  relation 
between  the  two.  There  are  two  antithetical  attitudes  in 
various  parts  of  North  America  regarding  the  killing  of  the 
guardian-spirit  animal:  (1)  Under  no  circumstances  may  the 
animal  which  represents  the  tutelary  be  killed  or  eaten;  (2)  the 
guardian  spirit  may  be  the  animal  its  owner  kills  most  readily, 
and  may  specifically  grant  him  power  to  kill  that  species. 

The  first  attitude  is  sporadic  in  a  number  of  parts  of  North 
America.  The  Assiniboine  of  the  Plains  will  not  kill  or  eat 
his  guardian  spirit.274  And  the  neighboring  Hidatsa  observe 
the  same  taboo,  while  observing  none  with  reference  to  their 
clan  organization.275  The  Arapaho  have  a  similar  prohibition.276 
The  Blackfoot  beaver-bundle  owner  may  not  kill  or  eat  beaver 
or  any  of  the  birds  in  his  bundle.277 

Again,  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  the  Maidu  regard  the  tutelary 
as  prohibited  food,278  but  the  widest  area  where  this  usage  pre- 


273  Boas:  Indianishe  Sagen. 

274  Lowie:  Assiniboine,  p.  47. 

275  Lowie:  Hidatsa  Sun  Dance,  p.  419. 

276  Kroeber:  Arapaho,  p.  432. 

277  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Bundles,  p.  173. 

278  Dixon,  Maidu,  p.  276. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


83 


vails  is  that  of  the  Dene, 2/9  where  “under  no  circumstances 
would  anything  induce  him  willfully  to  kill  or  at  least  to  eat 
the  flesh”  of  his  personal  tutelary.  The  Copper  Eskimo  observe 
a  similar  prohibition.280 

Much  more  widespread  is  an  absence  of  such  motivation  of 
food  taboos.  The  Montagnais  obtains  a  vision  of  his  guardian 
spirit  which  anticipates  its  capture.281  The  Mistassini,  to  the 
west,  depend  upon  their  beaver  tutelaries  to  direct  them  to  the 
capture  of  one  of  their  most  important  sources  of  food  supply — 
namely,  beaver.282  The  Eskimo  of  Alaska  have  no  taboo  on 
eating  the  flesh  of  their  tutelaries.283  The  Thompson  River 
and  Lillooet  have  again  the  feeling  that  the  guardian  spirit  is 
the  animal  he  kills  most  readily.284  On  Puget  Sound  one  had  a 
better  chance  of  killing  deer  if  one  had  a  deer  as  guardian.283 
The  Winnebago  hunt  and  eat  at  any  time  of  the  year  the  animal 
that  they  regard  as  their  personal  manitou.286 

In  all  these  areas,  however,  where  the  taboo  on  killing  or 
eating,  and  the  guardian-spirit  motivation,  have  not  become  as¬ 
sociated,  this  taboo  has  made  other  cultural  connections.  For 
the  Blackfoot  the  mere  taboo  on  eating  is  overwhelmed  in  a 
heterogeneous  assortment  of  prohibitions:  the  owner  must  not 
blow  the  fire;  fat  or  tallow  must  not  be  broken  in  the  tipi;  he 
must  never  sit  on  bare  ground;  no  one  must  walk  between  him 
and  the  fire;  he  must  not  go  barefooted  in  the  tipi.287  Among 
the  Thompson,  food  taboos  center  chiefly  around  pregnancy;288 
among  the  Eskimo,  around  the  hunting  of  animals.289  The 

279  Morice:  Dene,  p.  205;  Petitot:  Monographic,  p.  36. 

280  Jenness:  Copper  Eskimo,  p.  192. 

281  Speck:  Game  Totems,  p.  17. 

282  Ibid,  p.  16. 

283  Dali:  Alaska,  p.  145. 

284  Hill-Tout:  Salish  Tribes,  p.  230. 

285  Haeberlin:  MSS.  Puget  Sound. 

286  Radin:  Clan  Organization  of  the  Winnebago,  p.  12. 

287  Wissler:  Blackfoot  Bundles,  pp.  164  and  Ui  3. 

288  Teit:  Thompson  River,  p.  303. 

289  Boas:  Eskimo  of  Baffin  Land,  p.  120  sq. 


84 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


Menomini  have  a  varied  assortment.  To  discuss  taboo,  then, 
as  standing  in  a  general  functional  relation  to  the  tutelary  is 
outside  the  question.  It  is  another  of  the  cultural  traits  which 
have  made  desultory  connections  with  the  idea  of  guardian 
spirits. 

Conclusion 

There  is  then  no  observed  correlation  between  the  vision- 
guardian-spirit  concept,  and  the  other  traits  with  which  it  is 
associated,  as  it  were  organically,  over  the  continent,  and  we 
have  found  no  coalescence  which  we  may  regard  as  being  other 
than  fortuitous — an  historical  happening  of  definite  time  and 
place.290  The  miscellaneous  traits  that  enter  in  different  centers 
into  its  make-up  are  none  of  them  either  the  inevitable  fore¬ 
runner,  the  inevitable  corollary,  or  the  inevitable  accompani¬ 
ment  of  the  concept,  but  have  each  an  individual  existence 
and  a  wider  distribution  outside  this  complex.  In  one  region 
it  has  associated  itself  with  puberty  ceremonials,  in  another  with 
totemism,  in  a  third  with  secret  societies,  in  a  fourth  with 
inherited  rank,  in  a  fifth  with  black  magic.  Among  the  Black- 
foot,  it  is  their  economic  system  into  which  the  medicine  bundles 
have  so  insinuated  themselves  that  the  whole  manner  of  it  is 
unintelligible  without  taking  into  account  the  monetary  value 
of  the  vision.  Among  the  Kwakiut.1,  their  social  life  and  organi¬ 
zation,  their  caste  system,  their  concept  of  wealth,  would  be 
equally  impossible  of  comprehension  without  a  knowledge  of 
those  groups  of  individuals  sharing  the  same  guardian  spirit 
by  supernatural  revelation.  It  is  in  every  case  a  matter  of  the 
social  patterning — of  that  which  cultural  recognition  has 
singled  out  and  standardized. 

It  is,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  an  ultimate  fact  of  human  nature 
that  man  builds  up  his  culture  out  of  disparate  elements, 


290  See  Wissler:  American  Anthropologist,  1912,  p.  22,  and  Anthropology  in 
North  America,  p.  117. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


85 


combining  and  recombining  them;  and  until  we  have  abandoned 
the  superstition  that  the  result  is  an  organism  functionally 
interrelated,  we  shall  be  unable  to  see  our  cultural  life  objec¬ 
tively,  or  to  control  its  manifestations. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


de  Angulo,  Jaime.  MSS.  Pit  River  Indians.  (University  of  California.) 

Barbeau,  C.  M.  MSS.  The  Wyandotte.  (Geological  Survey  of  Canada.) 

Benedict,  Laura  W.  A  Study  of  Bagobo  Ceremonial,  Magic  and  Myth. 
(Annals  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Science,  vol.  xxv,  pp.  1-308, 
May,  1916.) 

Benedict,  Ruth  F.  The  Vision  in  Plains  Culture.  (American  Anthro¬ 
pologist,  New  Series,  vol.  24,  1922,  pp.  1-23.) 

Boas,  Franz.  The  Central  Eskimo.  (Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the 
Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  1884-85;  Washington,  1888, 
pp.  399-669.) 

(MSS)  on  Cochiti,  New  Mexico. 

Religious  Beliefs  of  the  Central  Eskimo.  (Popular  Science  Monthly, 
vol.  lvii,  1900,  pp.  624-631.) 

The  Eskimo  of  Baffin  Land  and  Hudson  Bay.  (Bulletin,  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  xv,  part  I,  1901.) 

Indianische  Sagen  von  der  Nord-Pacifischen  Kiiste  Amerikas. 
Berlin,  1895. 

The  Social  Organization  and  the  Secret  Societies  of  the  Kwakiutl 
Indians.  (Report  of  the  U.  S.  National  Museum  for  1895,  Wash¬ 
ington  1897,  pp.  311-738.) 

The  Origin  of  Totemism.  (American  Anthropologist,  (n.s.),  1916, 
vol.  xviii,  pp.  319-326.) 

Reports  on  the  Northwestern  Tribes  of  Canada.  (British  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science.  Fifth  Report,  1889,  pp.  797- 
893;  Sixth  Report,  1890,  pp.  553-715;  Seventh  Report,  1891, 
pp.  408-449;  Tenth  Report,  1895,  pp.  522-592;  Eleventh  Report, 
1896,  pp.  569-591;  Twelfth  Report,  1898,  pp.  648-654.) 

Art,  in  Teit,  J.:  The  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia.  (Pub¬ 
lications  of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  i,  pt.  iv, 
Leiden,  1900.) 

Tsimshian  Mythology.  (Thirty-first  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau 
of  American  Ethnology,  1909-1910;  pp.  27-1037.) 

Chinook  Texts.  (Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  Washington,  1894.) 

Kwakiutl  Texts.  (Publications  of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition, 
vol.  hi.  Leiden,  1905.) 

MSS.  Laguna  Texts. 

Bogoras,  W.  The  Chukchee:  Religion.  (Publications  of  the  Jesup  North 
Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  vn,  pt.  i.  Leiden,  1904-9.) 

The  Folklore  of  Northeastern  Asia  as  Compared  with  that  of  North¬ 
western  America.  (American  Anthropologist,  n.  s.,  vol.  iv, 
pp.  577-683.) 


86 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


87 


Brinton,  D.  G.  Nagualism.  (Proceedings  of  the  American  Philo¬ 
sophical  Society,  vol.  xxxiii,  1894,  pp.  11-69.) 

Chamberlain,  A.  F.  Kootenay.  (British  Association  for  the  Advance¬ 
ment  of  Science.  Eighth  Report  on  the  Northwestern  Tribes  of 
Canada,  1892,  pp.  549-615.) 

Codrington,  R.  H.  The  Melanesians:  Studies  in  their  Anthropology 
and  Folklore.  Oxford,  1891. 

Melanesians.  Article  in  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics, 
edited  by  J.  Hastings. 

Converse,  Harriet  Maxwell.  Myths  and  Legends  of  the  New  York 
State  Iroquois.  (New  York  State  Museum,  Museum  Bulletin  125.) 

Crawley,  A.  E.  Origin  and  Function  of  Religion.  (Sociological  Papers, 
vol.  hi,  London  1907;  pp.  243-249.) 

Curtin,  Jeremiah.  Creation  Myths  of  Primitive  America  in  relation 
to  the  Religious  History  and  Mental  Development  of  Mankind. 
Boston,  1898. 

Cushing,  Frank  Hamilton.  Zuni  Breadstuffs.  (Museum  of  the 
American  Indian,  Heye  Foundation,  N.  Y.  1920.) 

Dall,  William  H.  Alaska  and  Its  Resources.  Boston,  1870. 

Dorsey,  George  A.  The  Pawnee  Mythology.  (The  Carnegie  Institu¬ 
tion  of  Washington,  Publication  No.  59,  Washington,  1906.) 

Traditions  of  the  Skidi  Pawnee.  (Memoirs  of  the  American  Folk- 
Lore  Society,  vol.  viii,  Boston,  1904.) 

Dorsey,  J.  Owen.  A  Study  of  Siouan  Cults.  (Eleventh  Annual  Report 
of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  1889-90,  Washington,  1894; 
pp.  351-544.) 

Siouan  Sociology.  (Ibid,  Fifteenth  Annual  Report,  1893-94,  Wash¬ 
ington,  1897,  pp.  205-244.) 

Dixon,  R.  B.  The  Northern  Maidu.  (Bulletin  of  the  American  Museum 
of  Natural  History,  vol.  xvn,  pt.  hi,  pp.  119-346.) 

The  Shasta.  (Ibid,  pt.  v,  pp.  381-498.) 

Du  Bois,  Constance  Goddard.  Religion  of  the  Luiseno  Indians  of 
Southern  California.  (University  of  California  Publications  in 
American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  vol.  8,  no.  3,  pp.  69-186.) 

Dumarest,  Father  Noel.  Notes  on  Cochiti,  New  Mexico.  (Memoirs  of 
the  American  Anthropological  Association,  vol.  6,  pp.  135-236.) 

Durkheim,  Emil.  Elementary  Forms  of  the  Religious  Life;  A  Study  in 
Religious  Sociology.  Trans,  from  the  French  by  J.  W.  Swain, 
London,  1915. 

Ellis,  A.  B.  The  Tshi-Speaking  People  of  the  Gold  Coast  of  West 
Africa.  London,  1887. 

Fletcher,  Alice  C.  The  Import  of  the  Totem,  A  Study  from  the  Omaha 
Tribe.  (Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advance¬ 
ment  of  Science,  1897,  pp.  325-334.) 


88 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


and  La  Flesche,  F.  The  Omaha  Tribe.  (Twenty-seventh  Annual 
Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  1905-06,  Washington, 
1911.) 

Frazer,  J.  G.  Totemism  and  Exogamy.  4  vols.  London,  1910. 

The  Golden  Bough,  3rd  Edition,  12  vols.  London,  1911-1920. 

van  Gennep,  Arnold.  Rites  de  Passage.  Paris,  1909. 

Goddard,  Pliny  Earle.  MSS  on  Wailaki.  (American  Museum  of 
Natural  History.) 

Sarsi  Texts.  (University  of  California  Publications  in  American 
Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  vol.  11,  no.  3,  pp.  189-277.) 

Indians  of  the  Southwest.  (American  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
Handbook  Series  No.  2,  New  York,  1921.) 

Goldenweiser,  A.  A.  On  Iroquois  Work.  (Summary  Report  of  the 
Geological  Survey,  Canada,  1912,  pp.  464-475.) 

Social  Organization  of  the  American  Indians,  in  Anthropology  in 
North  America,  New  York,  1915,  pp.  350-378. 

Totemism;  an  Analytical  Study.  (Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore, 
1910,  vol.  xxiii,  pp.  179-293.) 

Grinnell,  G.  B.  The  Great  Mysteries  of  the  Cheyenne.  (American 
Anthropologist,  n.  s.,  vol.  12,  1910,  pp.  542-575.) 

Haddon,  A.  C.  Presidential  Address  to  the  Anthropological  Section. 
(Report  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
vol.  lxxii,  1902,  pp.  738-752.) 

Hale,  Horatio.  The  Iroquois  Book  of  Rites.  (Library  of  Aboriginal 
Literature,  vol.  2,  Philadelphia,  1883.) 

Handbook  of  American  Indians  North  of  Mexico,  vol.  2.  (Bulletin 
30,  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  Washington,  1907-10.) 

Haeberlin,  Herman.  SbEtEtdaq,  A  Shamanistic  Performance  of  the 
Coast  Salish.  (American  Anthropologist,  n.  s.,  vol.  20,  1918, 
pp.  249-257.) 

Harrington,  M.  R.  A  Preliminary  Sketch  of  Lenape  Culture.  (Ameri¬ 
can  Anthropologist,  n.  s.,  vol.  15,  1913,  pp.  208-235.) 

Religion  and  Ceremonies  of  the  Lenape,  New  York,  1921. 

Hartland,  Sidney.  Presidential  Address.  (Folk-Lore,  vol.  xi,  1900, 
pp.  52-80.) 

Hawkins,  Benjamin.  The  Creek  Confederacy.  (Collections  of  the 
Georgia  Historical  Society,  vol.  m,  Savannah,  1848.) 

Hecke welder,  John.  History,  Manners,  and  Customs  of  the  Indian 
Nations  who  once  inhabited  Pennsylvania  and  the  neighboring 
States.  (Memoirs  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania, 
vol.  xn,  Philadelphia,  1876.) 

de  Herrera,  Antonio.  General  History  of  the  Continent  and  Islands 
of  America.  Trans,  into  English  by  Capt.  John  Stevens,  iv, 
London,  1726. 

Hewitt,  J.  N.  B.  Articles  on  Iroquois,  Handbook  of  the  American  In¬ 
dians.  (Bull.  30,  Bu.  Am.  Eth.) 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


89 


Hill-Tout,  Charles.  British  North  America.  Native  Races  of  the 
British  Empire  Series,  London,  1907. 

The  Salish  Tribes  of  the  Coast  and  the  Lower  Frazer  Delta.  (Annual 
Archaeological  Report,  1905,  Toronto,  1906,  pp.  225-235.) 

Totemism.  A  Consideration  of  its  Origin  and  Import.  (Transac¬ 
tions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Canada,  vol.  ix  (1903-04),  pp.  61-99.) 

Hoffman,  W.  J.  The  Midewiwin  or  “Grand  Medicine  Society”  of  the 
Ojibwa.  (Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American 
Ethnology,  1885-86,  Washington,  1891,  pp.  143-300.) 

Hooper,  Lucille.  The  Cahuilla  Indians.  (University  of  California 
Publications  in  American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  vol.  6, 
pp.  315-380.) 

Howitt,  A.  W.  The  Native  Tribes  of  South-east  Australia,  London, 
1904. 

Jenness,  D.  The  Life  of  the  Copper  Eskimo.  (Report  of  Canadian 
Arctic  Expedition,  1913-18,  vol.  xn.) 

Jesuit  Relations  and  Allied  Documents.  1896-1901.  Edited  by 
Reuben  Gold  Thwaites.  71  volumes. 

Jochelson,  Waldemar.  Religion  and  Myths  of  the  Koryak.  (Publica¬ 
tions  of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  vi,  pt.  i.,  Leiden, 
1905-8.) 

Jones,  William.  Ojibwa  Texts.  Vol.  II.  (Publications  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Ethnological  Society,  vol.  vn.,  pt.  2,  New  York,  1919.) 

Notes  on  the  Fox  Indians.  (Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol. 
xxiv,  1911,  pp.  209-238.) 

Kingsley,  Mary  H.  Travels  in  West  Africa.  London,  1904. 

Krause,  A.  Die  Tlinkit-Indianer.  Jena,  1885. 

Kroeber,  A.  L.  The  Arapaho.  (Bulletins,  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  vol.  18,  part  4,  1907.) 

California  Culture  Provinces.  (University  of  California  Publications 
in  American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  vol.  17,  no.  2,  pp.  151- 
169.) 

The  Religion  of  the  Indians  of  California.  (Ibid.,  vol.  4,  no.  6, 
pp.  319-356.) 

Preliminary  Sketch  of  the  Mohave  Indians.  (American  Anthropolo¬ 
gist,  n.  s.,  vol.  4,  1902,  pp.  276-285.) 

La  Flesche,  Francis.  Death  and  Funeral  Customs  among  the  Omahas. 
(Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  2,  1889,  pp.  3-11.) 

The  Osage  Tribe,  Thirty-Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
American  Ethnology,  1914-15,  Washington,  1921.) 

Lang,  Andrew.  Making  of  Religion.  London,  1898. 

Lowie,  Robert  H. 

The  Assiniboine.  (Anthropological  Papers,  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History,  vol.  iv,  pt.  i,  pp.  1-270, 1909.) 

Myths  and  Traditions  of  the  Crow  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  xxv,  pt.  i, 
pp.  1-308,  1918.) 


90  A  MERIC  A  N  A  NTHROPOLOGICA  L  A  SSOCIA  TION  [memoirs,  29 

Notes  on  the  Social  Organization  and  Customs  of  the  Mandan, 
Hidatsa,  and  Crow  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  xxi,  pt.  I,  pp.  1-99,  1917.) 

The  Religion  of  the  Crow  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  xxv,  pt.  n,  1922.) 

Societies  of  the  Crow,  Hidatsa,  and  Mandan  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  xi, 
pt.  hi,  pp.  143-358,  1913.) 

Sun  Dance  of  the  Crow  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  xvi,  pt.  I,  pp.  1-50,  1915.) 

The  Tobacco  Society  of  the  Crow  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  xxi,  pt.  n, 
pp.  101-200,  1920.) 

Primitive  Society.  New  York,  1920. 

Lloyd,  J.  Mythology  of  the  Pima.  Awawtam,  Indian  Nights.  West- 
field,  N.  J.,  1911. 

Lummis,  Chas.  F.  Pueblo  Indian  Folk-stories.  New  York,  1910. 

Maximilian,  Prinz  zu  Wied.  Reise  in  das  innere  Nord-America  in  den 
Jahren  1832  bis  1834.  Coblenz,  1841. 

McDougall,  William.  An  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology.  Boston, 
1913. 

McKern,  W.  C.  Functional  Families  of  the  Patwin.  (University  of 
Cal.  Publ.  Am.  Arch.  Eth.,  vol.  13,  no.  7,  1922.) 

Michelson,  Truman.  The  Owl  Sacred  Pack  of  the  Fox  Indians. 
(Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  no.  72,  Washing¬ 
ton,  1921.) 

Mooney,  James.  The  Ghost  Dance  Religion  and  the  Sioux  Outbreak  of 
1890.  (Fourteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American 
Ethnology,  1892-93,  Washington,  1896,  pp.  641-1110.) 

Myths  of  the  Cherokee.  (Nineteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau 
of  American  Ethnology,  1897-98,  Washington,  1900,  pp.  3-548.) 

Morgan,  Lewis  H.  League  of  Ho-de-no-sau-nee  or  Iroquois.  2  vols. 
New  York,  1901. 

Morice,  A.  G.  The  Canadian  Dene.  (Annual  Archaeological  Report, 
1905  (Toronto,  1905),  pp.  187-219.) 

Murie,  James.  Pawnee  Societies.  (Anthropological  Papers,  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  xi,  pt.  vn,  pp.  543-644,  1914.) 

Parker,  K.  L.  The  Euahlayi  Tribe.  London,  1905. 

Parsons,  Elsie  Clews.  Notes  on  Ceremonialism  at  Laguna.  (Anthro¬ 
pological  Papers  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol. 
xix,  pt.  iv,  1920.) 

Notes  on  Zuni,  pt.  ii.  (Memoirs  of  the  American  Anthropological 
Association,  vol.  iv,  number  4,  pp.  227-327.) 

In:  Dumarest,  Notes  on  Cochiti,  New  Mexico. 

Pepper,  George  H.  and  Wilson,  Gilbert  L.  An  Hidatsa  Shrine  and 
the  Beliefs  Respecting  It.  (Memoirs  of  the  American  Anthropologi¬ 
cal  Association,  vol.  ii,  part  4,  pp.  275-328.) 

Petitot,  Le  R.  P.  E.  Monographic  des  Dene-Dindjie.  Paris,  1876. 

Radin,  Paul.  Autobiography  of  a  Winnebago  Indian.  (University  of 
California  Publications  in  American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology, 
vol.  16,  no.  7,  pp.  381-473.) 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


91 


Religion  of  the  Indians  of  North  America,  in  Anthropology  in  North 
America,  pp.  259-305,  New  York,  1915. 

An  Introductive  Enquiry  in  the  Study  of  Ojibwa  Religion.  (Reprinted 
from  the  Papers  and  Records  of  the  Ontario  Historical  Society, 
vol.  xii,  Hamilton,  Ontario,  1914.) 

The  Ritual  and  Significance  of  the  Winnebago  Medicine  Dance. 
(Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxiv,  1911,  pp.  149-208.) 

The  Social  Organization  of  the  Winnebago  Indians,  an  Interpretation. 
(Museum  Bulletin  No.  10,  Canada  Department  of  Mines,  Geological 
Survey,  1915.) 

Rasmussen,  Knud.  The  People  of  the  Polar  North,  A  Record.  Lon¬ 
don,  1908. 

Russell,  Frank.  The  Pima  Indians.  (Twenty-sixth  Annual  Report  of 
the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  1904-05,  Washington,  1908, 
pp.  3-390.) 

Sapir,  Edward.  A  Girl’s  Puberty  Ceremonial  among  the  Nootka  In¬ 
dians.  (Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Canada,  3rd  series, 
1913,  pp.  67-80.) 

Time  Perspective  in  Aboriginal  American  Culture,  a  Study  in  Method. 
(Memoir  90,  Canada  Department  of  Mines,  Geological  Survey, 
1916.) 

Religious  Ideas  of  the  Takelma  Indians.  (Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  vol.  20,  1907,  pp.  33-49.) 

Takelma  Texts.  (University  of  Pennsylvania,  The  Museum  Anthro¬ 
pological  Publications,  vol.  n,  no.  1,  1909.) 

Vancouver  Island  Indians.  (In  Hastings’s  Encyclopedia  of  Religion 
and  Ethics.) 

Wishram  Texts.  (Publications  of  the  American  Ethnological  Society. 
Leiden,  1909,  vol.  ii.) 

Yana  Texts.  (University  of  California  Publications  in  American 
Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  vol.  ix,  no.  1,  1910.) 

Schurtz,  H.  Altersklassen  und  Mannerbiinde.  Berlin,  1902. 

Skeat,  W.  W.  Malay  Magic.  London,  1900. 

Skinner,  A.  Social  Life  and  Ceremonial  Bundles  of  the  Menomini 
Indians.  (Anthropological  Papers  of  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History,  vol.  xiii,  1913,  pp.  1-165.) 

Menomini  Associations  and  Ceremonies.  (Ibid,  pp.  171-215.) 

Sparkman,  Philip  Stedman.  Culture  of  the  Luiseno  Indians.  (Uni¬ 
versity  of  California  Publications  in  American  Archaeology  and 
Ethnology,  vol.  8,  no.  4,  pp.  187-234.) 

Speck,  F.  G.  Game  Totems  of  the  Northeastern  Algonkians.  (American 
Anthropologist,  n.  s.,  vol.  xix,  1917,  pp.  9-18.) 

Ethnology  of  the  Yuchi.  (University  of  Pennsylvania,  Anthropologi¬ 
cal  Publications  of  the  University  Museum,  vol.  i,  1909,  pp.  1-154.) 

The  Family  Hunting  Band  as  the  Basis  of  Algonkian  Social  Organiza¬ 
tion.  (American  Anthropologist,  1915,  n.  s.,  vol.  17,  pp.  289-305.) 


92 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs,  29 


Medical  Practices  of  the  North-eastern  Algonkians.  (Proceedings  of 
the  Nineteenth  International  Congress  of  Americanists.  December, 
1915.) 

Penobscot  Shamanism.  (Memoirs  of  the  American  Anthropological 
Association,  vol.  6,  pp.  237-288.) 

Spieth,  Jacob.  Die  Ewe-Stamme.  Berlin,  1906. 

Spinden,  H.  J.  The  Nez  Perce  Indians.  (Memoirs  of  the  American 
Anthropological  Association,  vol.  n,  1908,  pp.  165-274.) 

Stevenson,  Matilda  Coxe.  The  Sia.  (Eleventh  Annual  Report  of 
the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  1889-90,  Washington,  pp. 
3-157.) 

Swanton,  J.  R.  Contributions  to  the  Ethnology  of  the  Haida.  (Pub¬ 
lications  of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  v,  pt.  i, 
Leiden,  1905-09.) 

Social  Condition,  Beliefs,  and  Linguistic  Relationship  of  the  Tlingit 

Indians.  (Twenty-sixth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American 
Ethnology,  1904-5,  Washington,  1908,  pp.  391-485.) 

Indian  Tribes  of  the  Lower  Mississippi  Valley.  (Bulletins  of  the 
Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  vol.  43,  Washington,  1911.) 

A  Reconstruction  of  the  Theory  of  Social  Organization.  (Boas 
Anniversary  Volume,  pp.  166-178,  New  York,  1906.) 

Tanner,  John.  Narrative  of  the  Captivity  and  Adventures  of  John 
Tanner  during  Thirty  Years  Residence  among  the  Indians  in  the 
Interior  of  North  America,  New  York,  1830. 

Talbot,  P.  A.  In  the  Shadow  of  the  Bush.  London,  1912. 

Teit,  James.  The  Lillooet  Indians.  (Publications  of  the  Jesup  North 
Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  ii,  pp.  193-300,  Leiden,  1906.) 

The  Shuswap.  (Ibid,  vol.  n,  pp.  443-789,  Leiden,  1909.) 

The  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia.  (Ibid,  vol.  i,  pp.  163- 
392,  Leiden,  1900.) 

Mythology  of  the  Thompson  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  vm,  pp.  218  et  sq., 
Leiden,  1912.) 

Traditions  of  the  Thompson  River  Indians  of  British  Columbia. 
(Memoirs  of  the  American  Folk-Lore  Society,  vol.  vi,  1898.) 

Thomas,  N.  W.  Animal:  Nagual.  In  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and 
Ethics,  edited  by  J.  Hastings. 

Turner,  George.  Samoa.  London,  1884. 

Tylor,  E.  B.  Primitive  Culture.  2  vols.  London,  1920. 

Walker,  J.  R.  Sun  Dance  and  other  Ceremonies  of  the  Oglala  Division 
of  the  Teton  Dakota.  (Anthropological  Papers,  American  Museum 
of  Natural  History,  vol.  xvi,  pt.  n,  pp.  51-221,  1917.) 

Waterman,  T.  T.  The  Religious  Practices  of  the  Diegueno  Indians. 
(University  of  California  Publications  in  American  Archaeology 
and  Ethnology,  vol.  8,  pt.  6,  pp.  271-358,  1910.) 

Webster,  Hutton.  Primitive  Secret  Societies:  A  Study  in  Early 
Politics  and  Religion.  New  York,  1908. 


benedict]  THE  GUARDIAN  SPIRIT  IN  NORTH  AMERICA 


93 


Wilson,  Gilbert  L.  See  Pepper  and  Wilson. 

Wissler,  Clark.  MSS  on  Pawnee,  (American  Museum  of  Natural 
History.) 

Ceremonial  Bundles  of  the  Blackfoot  Indians.  (Anthropological 
Papers,  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  vii,  pt. 
ii,  pp.  65-289,  1912.) 

Societies  and  Ceremonial  Associations  of  the  Oglala  Division  of  the 
Teton-Dakota.  (Ibid,  vol.  xi,  pt.  i,  pp.  1-99,  1912.) 

Sun  Dance  of  the  Blackfoot  Indians.  (Ibid,  vol.  II,  pt.  i,  pp.  1-164, 
1908.) 

The  American  Indian.  New  York,  1917. 

Wundt,  Wilhelm.  Volkerpsychologie:  vol.  iv,  My  thus  und  Religion, 
pt.  I.  Leipzig,  1914. 


INDEX 


Age  limitation  in  vision  pursuit,  49 
Animals  as  guardian  spirits,  48 

Bagobo,  guardian  spirits  among,  21 
Bush  soul,  of  Cameroons,  23 

California;  guardian  spirits  among  the  Shasta,  14;  dreams  and  visions, 
26;  vision  sought  for  every  cure,  28;  genii  loci  as  guardian  spirits, 
Maidu  and  Shasta,  47;  Yana,  47;  puberty  rites  and  vision  pursuit 
contrasted,  50;  crowd  situation  in  guardian-spirit  experience,  Wintun 
and  Wailaki,  52;  inheritance  in  guardian  spirits,  Maidu,  57;  catego¬ 
ries  of  shamans,  Maidu,  70;  Hupa,  71 
Central  Algonkian,  fasting  in  vision  pursuit,  27;  vision  sought  for  every 
warpath,  28;  vision  inducement,  Winnebago,  30,  42;  multiple  guard¬ 
ian  spirits,  31;  demons  as  guardian  spirits,  44;  genii  loci  as  guardian 
spirits,  46;  animals  as  guardian  spirits,  48;  inheritance  in  guardian 
spirits,  55;  types  of  spirits  as  tutelaries,  58;  religious  attitude  toward 
totem,  65;  categories  of  shamans,  69 
Central  America,  guardian  spirits  in,  35 
Chukchee,  tutelaries  among,  20 
Clan  organization  and  the  guardian  spirits,  56 
Crawley,  on  origin  of  religion,  5 
Crowd  situaiion  in  guardian-spirit  experience,  51 

Dead,  the,  as  guardian  spirits,  47 

Delaware,  authority  of  visions  among,  23;  categories  of  shamans,  71 
Demons  as  guardian  spirits,  44 

Dene,  no  evidence  of  totemism,  61;  witchcraft  and  shamanism,  75;  food 
taboo,  83 

Disguise,  guardian  spirit  as  a  magic,  17 
Diversity  of  role  in  guardian-spirit  complex,  9,  19 
Dreams  and  the  vision  experience,  26 

Durkheim,  on  origin  of  religion,  5;  on  importance  of  crowd  situation  in 
religion,  51;  on  evolution  of  guardian-spirit  concepts  from  totemism, 
61,  62 

Economic  life  and  guardian-spirit  phenomena,  76 

Eskimo,  Central,  guardian  spirits  among  the,  18;  importance  of  mytho¬ 
logical  background,  82;  food  taboo,  Cooper  Eskimo,  83;  lack  of  food 
taboo  in  guardian-spirit  practice,  Alaska,  83 
Euahlayi,  guardian  spirits  among  the,  20 
Ewe,  guardian  spirits  among  the,  22 

Failure  in  vision  pursuit,  25 


\ 


94 


benedict] 


INDEX 


95 


Fletcher,  on  development  of  totemism  from  guardian-spirit  phenomena, 
57 

Folkloristic  background,  in  guardian-spirit  experience,  Kwakiutl,  13; 

Central  Eskimo,  18;  general,  81 
Food  taboo  and  guardian-spirit  practices,  82 

Formalized  visions,  Shasta,  14;  Penobscot,  17;  Pawnee,  30;  Dakota,  30; 

Tlingit,  etc.,  41 
Frazer  on  origin  of  religion,  5 

Genii  loci,  46 

Goldenweiser  on  totemism,  64 

Guardian  spirits  without  vision  experiences  outside  North  America,  20; 
atypical  fo  ms  in  North  America,  Pawnee,  30;  Mohave,  32;  Iroquois 
32;  Southwest,  35;  Patwin,  69 

Guardian  spirits,  kinds  of  beings  serving  as,  in  North  America,  43 

Hartland,  on  recent  origin  of  guardian-spirit  concepts,  62 

Haddon,  on  time  relation  of  totemism  and  guardian-spirit  concepts,  62 

Headscratcher,  ceremonial,  79 

Individualization  of  spiritual  beings,  Kwakiutl,  13 
Inheritance  in  guardian  spirits,  55 

Iroquois,  guardian  spirits  among,  32;  Wyandotte,  guardian  spirits  and  to¬ 
tems  contrasted,  58;  lack  of  veneration  toward  totem,  66 
Isolation  as  vision  requirement,  41 

Koryak,  involuntary  v'sions  among  the,  27 

Lang  on  origin  of  religion,  5 
Loss  of  soul  before  death,  80 

Malay,  guardian  spirits  among  the,  22 

Marett  on  mana,  5 

McDougall  on  origin  of  religion,  5 

Means  of  inducing  visions,  26,  42 

Methodological  limitations  in  use  of  authorities,  8 

Mohave,  character  of  vision  experience  among,  32 

Mota,  guardian  spirits  on,  21 

Mythology  and  guardian-spirit  concepts,  81 

Name,  taken  from  guardian-spirit  experience,  13 

Northeastern  Algonkians;  guardian  spirits  among  the  Penobscot,  17; 
vision  for  every  hunt,  28;  demons  as  guardian  spirits,  45;  totemic 
aspects,  59;  categories  of  shamans,  71 
Northwest  Coast;  guardian  spirits  among  the  Kwakiutl,  12;  failure  in  vi¬ 
sion  quest,  Bellacoola,  25;  involuntary  visions,  Bellacoola,  27;  cere¬ 
monial  cleanness,  Haida,  29;  vision  inducement,  Tsimshian,  29; 
Kwakiutl,  42;  Wishram,  43;  formalized  visions,  Tlingit,  41;  gods  as 


96 


AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  ASSOCIATION  [memoirs  29 


guardian  spirits,  44;  the  dead  as  guardian  spirits,  48;  puberty  and 
the  vision,  51;  influence  of  rank  in  guardian-spirit  phenomena,  55; 
divergence  between  guardian  spirits  and  totems,  58;  relation  of  totems 
and  guardian  spirits,  Kwakiutl,  60;  religious  coloring  in  totemism,  67; 
witchcraft  and  shamanism,  74;  categories  of  shamans,  75;  wealth  as 
guardian  spirits,  76;  importance  of  mythology  in  guardian-spirit  con¬ 
cepts,  81 

Origins  in  religion,  various  attempts  to  isolate,  5 

Plains;  guardian  spirits  among  the  Crow,  15;  “adoption”  by  spirits,  Crow, 
16;  authority  of  visions,  23;  pattern  of  Blackfoot  visions,  24;  torture 
in  vision  pursuit,  27;  vision  pursuit  outside  of  guardian  spirit  com¬ 
plex,  29;  lack  of  age-limitation  in  vision  pursuit,  50;  neglect  of 
crowd-situation  in  vision  pursuit,  53;  group  ceremonial  founded  on, 
54  inheritance  in  guardian  spirits,  Arikara  and  Hidatsa,  56;  lack  of 
veneration,  Hidatsa,  62;  religious  attitude  toward  the  totem,  Osage, 
64;  categories  of  shamans,  Pawnee,  72;  wealth  attained  through 
visions,  76,  among  Bla  kfoot,  77;  lack  of  my  hological  background 
in  guardian-spirit  concepts,  81 ;  food  taboo  in  guardian-spirit  practice, 
82 

Plateau;  guardian  spirits  among  the  Thompson,  10;  failure  in  quest, 
Nez  Perce,  25;  authority  of  visions,  Kootenay,  24;  the  dead  as 
guardian  spirits,  48;  professional  groupings  and  guardian  spirits,  53; 
development  of  recent  totemism,  59;  priestly  functions  assumed  by 
chief,  Thompson,  74;  lack  of  mythological  background  in  guardian- 
spirit  concepts,  81;  absence  of  food  taboo  in  guardian-spirit  practice, 
83 

Police  functions  assumed  by  guardian-spirit  complex,  Penobscot,  18 

Predisposition  in  guardian-spirit  experience,  14 

Puberty  ceremonial  in  guardian-spirit  customs,  49 

Puget  Sound,  involuntary  visions,  27;  lack  of  age-limitation  in  vision 
pursuit,  51;  wealth  not  a  function  of  guardian-spirit  experience,  77; 
loss  of  soul  before  death,  relation  to  guardian-spirit  concepts,  80 

Radin,  on  relation  of  guardian  spirits  and  genii  loci,  46;  and  totems,  64; 
on  Winnebago  winter-feasts,  66 

Reality  of  Indian  visions,  23 

Sale  of  visions,  77 

Samoa,  guardian  spirits  in,  21. 

Schurtz,  on  puberty  concepts  in  Northwest  Coast  ceremonial,  51 

Secret  societies,  relation  of,  to  origin  of  totemism,  59 

Shamanism,  patterns  by  which  associated  with  guardian-spirit  phenom¬ 
ena,  67 

Shamans,  categories  of,  69;  shamans  and  priests,  73;  shamans  and  witches, 
74 


benedict] 


INDEX 


97 


Social  organization,  relations  of  guardian-spirit  concepts  to,  53-57; 

guardian  spirit  in  Kwakiutl  social  organization,  12,  55 
Southeast,  guardian  spirit  in,  16;  relation  of  guardian  spirit  and  totem, 
Yuchi,  60 

Southwest,  35;  beliefs  in  regard  to  dreams,  Zuni,  36;  Sia,  37;  ceremonial 
cleanness,  37;  sought  visions,  Pima,  38;  Laguna,  39;  Cochiti,  39; 
scalpdance  among  Pima,  79 

Takelma,  demons  as  guardians,  44;  puberty  rites  and  visions,  50;  cate¬ 
gories  of  shamans,  71 

Thrill,  the  religious,  as  distinguishing  mark  of  Indian  visions,  24 
Time  perspective,  in  relation  to  guardian-spirit  distribution,  62 
Torture  in  vision  pursuit,  27 

Totemism,  influence  in  guardian-spirit  practice,  Chickasaw,  16;  Yuchi,  17; 
development  of,  from  guardian-spirit  concepts,  57;  development  of 
guardian-spirit  concepts  from,  61;  case  for  antiquity  of,  in  North 
America,  63;  relation  of,  to  guardian  spirits,  67;  on  Northwest  Coast, 
66 

Totems  and  guardian  spirits  not  chosen  from  same  categories,  58;  venera¬ 
tion  of,  due  to  influence  of  guardian  spirits,  Osage,  64;  Fox,  65; 
Winnebago,  66 

Tshi-speaking  peoples,  guardian  spirit  among,  23 
Tylor,  on  animism,  5 

Unity,  historical,  of  guardian-spirit  concept,  9 

Van  Gennep,  on  social  puberty,  49 
Visions  in  guardian-spirit  experience,  20 

Visions  sought  for  other  purposes  than  securing  a  guardian  spirit,  28 
Watchanti,  guardian  spirits  among,  21 

Webster,  Hutton,  on  puberty  concepts  in  guardian-spirit  phenomena,  49 
Wiranjuri,  guardian  spirits  among  the,  21 

Wissler,  on  priest-shaman  categories,  73;  on  culture-trait  association,  84 
Wundt,  on  evolution  of  idea  of  god,  43 


MEMOIRS  OP  THE 

American  Anthropological  Association 

CONTINUED 


VOLUME  III 

Part  1. — The  Idea  of  Fertilization  in  the  Culture  of  the  Pueblo 

Indians.  By  H.  K.  Haeberlin.  (Pages  1-55.) 
Price  50  cents. 

Part  2. — The  Indians  of  Cuzco  and  the  Apurimac ,  By  H.  B. 

Ferris.  (Pages  56-148.  Plates  i-lx.)  Price 
$1.50.  ;J% 

Part  3. — Moccasins  and  their  Relation  to  Arctic  Footwear.  By 

GudmundHatt.  (Pages  149-250.)  Price  $1.00. 

Part  4. — Bdnaro  Society.  Social  Organization  and  Kinship 

System  of  a  Tribe  in  the  Interior  of  New  Guinea. 
By  Richard  Thurnwald.  (Pages  251-391.)  Price 
$1.50. 

VOLUME  IV 

Part  1  .—Matrilineal  Kinship  and  the  Question  of  Us  Priority , 

By  E.  Sidney  Hartland.  (Pages  1-90.)  Price 

$1.00. 

Part  2. — The  Reindeer  and  its  Domestication.  By  Berthold 

Laueer.  (Pages  91-148.)  Price  75  cents. 

Fart  3. — Notes  on  Zuni.  Part  I.  By  Elsie  Clews  Parsons. 

(Pages  149-226.)  Price  $1.00. 

Part  4. — Notes  on  Zuni.  Part  II.  By  Elsie  Clews  Par¬ 
sons.  (Pages  227-327.)  Price  $1.00. 

VOLUME  V 

Part  1. — A  Further  Study  of  Prehistoric  Small  House  Ruins  in 

the  San  Juan  Watershed.  By  T.  Mitchell 
Prudden.  (Pages  1-50.  Plates  i-v.)  Price  75 
cents. 

Part  2. — An  Early  Account  of  the  Choctaw  Indians.  By  John 

R.  S wanton.  (Pages  51-72.)  Price  25  cents. 

Part  3. — Notes  on  Some  Bushman  Implements.  By  Bene 

VanRippen.  (Pages  73-97.)  Price  50  cents. 

Part  4. — The  Little-Known  Small  House  Ruins  in  the  Coconino 

Forest .  By  M.  R.  F.  and  H.  S.  Colton.  (Pages 
9S-126.1  Price  50  cents. 


Part  1.- 


Part  2. 
Part  3. 


.  mm 


■  ’,•  •  -^  —•  «.'.  ■  '■'^■-‘  ^.,i-:V.  '"  ■'  '.•*  ■.  ;  <  W«  ..;•< 


-.j 

,  -<  .-•  -  *• ;  .-if.  X-t  'U-.hkV  •  <S^q.-'V»«.--fl,i-!  ••  s.A.  :>■  .,r*M4.v^*a>iwJ»44> 


' 

v..  U*  .  V^-4,.V  *! 


5V.> 


,l 


>v*  # 


jjgNFg 


tM«eg  mpagfiMhAm 

v  • .  y.-  m".  *.--,  .  /  rvM ^jp  *31*^  *2r*c" 


-  :" 


■ 


tmm  mam 


'&Z*Wry. 


>■.  *  ,-f  ••: 


.'*•>  '  ■  T'  ••  <4  Ws  *®3®32 

. 

i 

aJfrjMPW 
v.4*  **&**.  k 

-*  <»•■  '!,••'•;?'<■••"•>■■<  ■•  . . «a& /.'-•'Aarp'.a 

lag& 


.•'■v  ■  -4V  .'Vrv-f: .  *  •' 


;.‘w; 


-  r  •  ■ 


MEMOIRS  OF  THE 


.  Ti  ‘V-»vV'*.<i.  ->  ,•  ;v»7  •  -Jff  f>  '  ViAiT^i  ?SfyW  L« 

“  ^  -'7^'  ~  -7vf  •’  ;$i  ’ "  ■&  '‘'  ^'4^ 


**r  Jw®*.:. 


CONTINUED 


•VT'<  ••  - 

■ 

■:■  • «-.  '*  >  v,’  ' . *  -, 

^...-  :'-»*  <  -..v.  - 


M.  M 

P‘  V.  .y_  ,/'■■/  -rrf;  .V  fc'  JK| 

•'K.'  1  -  »  _»•  ,  ■  v>  V*  lt»-  'A. 

V  .  *  ->>V*  •:/  -  -^V^ •:<, 

.  , ..  .  -iCr'  :  ‘V-  ’  ( ;  * ,  .  .  •-  i- 


VOLUME  VI 


•  '->■  :.  -  %.  ,  --T 


:  '•••  JV'>, 


The  Functions  of  Wampum  Among  the  E( 
Algonkian.  By  Frank  G.  Speck.  (Pages  1-71.) 
Price  $1.00. 

_  v 

Notes  on  Reindeer  Nomadism .  By  Gudmund  Hatt 
(Pages  73-133.)  Price  $1.00. 

Notes  on  Cochiti}  New  Mexico.  By  Father  NoSl 
Dumarest.  (Pages  135-236.)  Price  $1.50. 

Part  4.—^ Penobscot  Shamanism.  By  Frank  G.  Speck,  (Pages 
237-289.) 


.)  Price  50  cents. 

•..  ■•'  *'  V-  *  • 

•'A'ffvk'AVj'  y  .•*  ■  i'V*vv-v  -  y  .1 <j.’- ■  '  *>U- '■  ■>*•**1'  <H 

■  '  '  .  ,v  .-' 

\l£  •-  '  v  :  t .’  ;.  ; *.■-*«.  ■’  >'5^  •.I^S'vVr^  .'?* 

e‘ xf  i  tty  ♦.  j  «  «  ^  «  .»  . 


was 

. -e.'iV-r 


issue 


as  separate  Memoirs,  assigning  to 
twenty-eight  papers  comprised  in  the  six  volumes  already;  published  as 
Numbers  1  to  28,  Memoirs  issued  subsequently  are  the  following: 

Number  29—  The  Concept  of  the  Guardian  Spirit  in  North  America.  By 
Rutii  Fulton  Benedict.  97  pages.  Price  $1.25. 

:  ‘  /  - .  *Y«*  /  rr  *  VV.Vil  ■•  .  s  V:-  f>W  .•  - '  V>1  /•  a-;.  ••  •  Si£v  -■•.••  V  ' vS-W 


.vv ;  m  11.  Pmm 

‘  :  f;  '  •■■■  ■-'■■  "'-.■  ;  '^JSskEbJIw 


-  ^  "...  .r  ■”•  >  •  .4  .,#•#11#...  >•  *  ;v'1'  <.  "ij'.  , 

:r 

,  V- T<''  "  '&TV',  ;•  .Jw:  «'•••;<*’■  ci,  '.'V vv  '.v-ff-.V! 

9V>, ■'  ■  •  4? “  •••A®  .M'  ,'H' 


PHOTOMOUNT 

PAMPHLET  BINDER 

PAT.  NO. 
877188 

Manufactured  by 
GAYLORD  BROS.  Inc 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
Stockton,  Calif. 


BL2530.G9B46 

The  concept  of  the  guardian  spirit  in 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1  1012  00034  5316 


.3 


